The Effect of Armed Conflict in Tajikistan on the Marriage Market and Female Reproductive Behavior

Olga N. Shemyakina, University of Southern California

This study examines the impact of the 1992-1998 armed conflict in Tajikistan on marriage market and fertility. In 1992-1994 the mortality rate due to injuries among adults, ages 15-19, increased by 225 percent compared to the 1989 levels. The combined effects of war-related mortality among adults and natural population growth may have led to a shortage in men of marriageable age as Tajik women traditionally marry men of the same age or older. Therefore, women who were too young to be married before the war may have later experienced what Caldwell, Reddy and Caldwell (1983) call a “marriage squeeze”. The Census data support this hypothesis. The data suggest that young women in the conflict affected regions were 2.5 to 5.0 percentage points more likely to be married by age 16 and 5.2 to 12.6 percentage points more likely to have children by age 18 than the older cohorts.