Age at First Marriage of Nepalese Women: A Statistical Analysis (Status, Differential, Determinants, and Distributional Pattern)

Abstract

Marriage is a legal union between two individuals. Marital status is an essential demographic variable affecting the fertility rate. Marriage is necessary for the fertility life of women in countries where fertility outside the marriage is not accepted socially. This paper presents Nepalese women’s status, differential, and determination of age at first marriage (AFM). Some probability distributions were used to analyze the distributional pattern of AFM. The Skew Log-Logistic distribution is found to fit the AFM data of Nepalese women better. The cumulative probabilities of fitted results were used to construct the marriage life table. The average waiting time for marriage for Nepalese women is estimated at 17.768 years. The probability of marrying or not marrying at a particular age is also calculated. Each of these findings provides information about the trends and patterns of marital behavior within a specific population. Besides demography, the analysis of AFM could have significant implications for various other fields, such as sociology, economics, and public health. These findings show the necessity of education campaigns opposing child marriage and early marriage. These findings can create marital policies and initiatives for the specific subpopulations with the lowest mean AFM.