Heterogeneous Impacts of Interventions Aiming to Delay Girls' Marriage and Pregnancy Across Girls' Backgrounds and Social Contexts

PURPOSE: Despite many programs aiming to delay girls' marriage and pregnancy over the last 2 decades, there is no consensus yet concerning the effectiveness of different approaches and the contexts in which they are implemented. We focus on different social contexts within Bangladesh and Zambia and investigate how literacy, poverty, and community characteristics impact the effectiveness of interventions. METHODS: We utilize data sets from two randomized controlled trials conducted by the Population Council in Bangladesh and Zambia. Within each respective country, we estimate the impacts of the interventions on marriage and pregnancy among adolescent girls using the analysis of covariance estimator by different social contexts based on community-level variables. RESULTS: In Bangladesh, providing academic skill training had a significant impact…