Determinants of Women‘s Age at First Marriage in Zimbabwe: A Survival Analysis Approach

Abstract

The study aims to examine the effect of select socio-demographic factors on women’s age at first marriage. The study employs survival analysis, specifically the Cox proportional hazard regression model and analysis of deviance using the Zimbabwe’s 2022 anonymised population and housing census data. The median women’s age at marriage in Zimbabwe is 21 years. Log rank tests show that there are statistically significant differences on median age at first marriage on all factor levels of the seven independent variables. Cox regression indicates that all the seven independent variables significantly influence women’s age at marriage. The most contributing factors to the age at first marriage are whether women had given live birth, province and level of education. The findings of this study suggest that policies that delay entry into first marriage must be province (region) based. Findings also suggest that improvement in educational attainment for women will play a significant role in delaying entry into first marriage.