Married too Young: the ripple effects of child marriage on women’s agency, education, fertility, and labor in Egypt

Using nationally representative data from the 2023 Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS), this paper describes education, fertility, labor market, and multi-dimensional agency outcomes for 13,280 currently married women aged 15–55, comparing those who married at or before age 18 with those who married later. Early marriage is common (29.2% of married women), particularly in rural and lower-wealth households. Relative to later-married women, early-married women more often have low schooling (30.4% illiterate vs. 16.1%) and much lower university attainment (1.9% vs. 24.8%). They report higher numbers of live births on average (3.2 vs. 2.8) and a greater prevalence of consanguineous unions (27% vs. 19%). Their labor force participation is around six percentage points lower and more concentrated in informal and unpaid work. Across agency domains, early-married women exhibit modest but patterned disadvantages in household decision-making, mobility, gender-egalitarian attitudes, and financial control, alongside higher justification of intimate partner violence and slightly lower self-efficacy. Agency levels rise with education for all women, yet early-married women remain less advantaged at each schooling level. Overall, the findings document systematic differences between early- and later-married women across human capital, economic engagement, and agency, underscoring the relevance of policies that expand schooling, decent work, and empowerment opportunities for girls and young women in Egypt.