Age at First and Current Marriage and Women’s Entrepreneurship in Nigeria

This paper relies on the 2008 and 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Surveys and an instrumental variable estimation strategy to estimate the relationship between a Nigerian woman’s age at entry into her first and current marriage and entrepreneurship. The result suggests a 5-percentage point higher likelihood of engaging in entrepreneurship for women with an additional year of at marriage entry. Further, there is about a 12-percentage point increase in the likelihood of continuous engagement in self-employed work over the prior year with an additional year of age at marriage entry. This result is consistent for women who reside in rural and urban locations. Premarital investments in education, lower fertility, and better intramarriage bargaining power are the likely operative channels that explain the estimated relationship. HIGHLIGHTS Early marriage entry has economic costs and hurts women’s overall empowerment. Early marriage in Nigeria is mainly influenced by religious and cultural factors. Women who marry early are less likely to engage in entrepreneurship and to do so continuously. There are no geographic differences in the effects of early marriage entry on entrepreneurship. Later marriage is associated with better education, declining fertility, and improved bargaining power of women.