I notice you have a table collecting and assessing possible harms from the practice but no similar table collecting and assessing possible benefits. In deciding whether to fight against some practice shouldn’t we want to figure out the net effect—benefits minus costs—rather than just costs?
Given how widespread the social phenomenon is, surely there must be some benefits?
( Something something Chesterton’s fence...)
Near as I can tell, the people who think it’s terrible are in large part motivated by largely-false quasi-Mathusian claims related to “overpopulation”. If we set those aside, younger brides tend to have more kids; all else being equal we should assume those kids have lots of extra QALYs (that wouldn’t otherwise exist) and also presumably make their parents happy. Are those married as children happier adults on average than those not? How do we balance a claimed higher risk of physical abuse against, say, a lower risk of ending up childless or alone or financially insecure?
Hi Glenra, thanks for engaging with the post. This is something I had not considered at all, and something I will consider for my QALY calculation. More kids may also worsen the economic situation of a family already living in a poor, rural place, and may not increase the happiness of parents. There is not available data on whether child marriage reduces the risk of never getting married, but there is data on the number of births (lots of it referenced here if you are interested Fan and Koski, 2022). Thanks for giving me challenging food for thought.
I notice you have a table collecting and assessing possible harms from the practice but no similar table collecting and assessing possible benefits. In deciding whether to fight against some practice shouldn’t we want to figure out the net effect—benefits minus costs—rather than just costs?
Given how widespread the social phenomenon is, surely there must be some benefits?
( Something something Chesterton’s fence...)
Near as I can tell, the people who think it’s terrible are in large part motivated by largely-false quasi-Mathusian claims related to “overpopulation”. If we set those aside, younger brides tend to have more kids; all else being equal we should assume those kids have lots of extra QALYs (that wouldn’t otherwise exist) and also presumably make their parents happy. Are those married as children happier adults on average than those not? How do we balance a claimed higher risk of physical abuse against, say, a lower risk of ending up childless or alone or financially insecure?
Hi Glenra, thanks for engaging with the post. This is something I had not considered at all, and something I will consider for my QALY calculation. More kids may also worsen the economic situation of a family already living in a poor, rural place, and may not increase the happiness of parents. There is not available data on whether child marriage reduces the risk of never getting married, but there is data on the number of births (lots of it referenced here if you are interested Fan and Koski, 2022). Thanks for giving me challenging food for thought.