WORLD Child Marriage Laws 2023

The WORLD Policy Analysis Center (WORLD) is committed to improving the quantity and quality of globally comparative data available to policymakers, citizens, civil society, and researchers on laws and policies that work to support human rights, including economic opportunity, social and civic engagement, human health, development, well-being, and equity. The WORLD Child Marriage Laws 2023 dataset was created to assess progress on laws prohibiting child marriage which jeopardizes educational attainment, health, economic opportunities, and gender equality through a systematic review of legislation governing the legal minimum age of marriage across all 193 UN countries as of May 2023. The dataset covers the legal minimum age of marriage for girls and boys, as well as exceptions to minimum ages with parental consent and under religious and customary law. Public use legislative repositories are also included providing the legal documents used to code African and Non-African countries.