Home / India News / Move to raise legal marriage age of women will see big gains: SBI report

Move to raise legal marriage age of women will see big gains: SBI report

While the mean female marriage age in India is already above 21 years, about 35% of are married before then, with the current legal limit at 18 years, according to SBI

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India is home to every third child bride in the world, with more than 100 million getting married even before turning 15, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund. |Photo: Shutterstock

Vrishti Beniwal | Bloomberg

2 min read Last Updated : Oct 22 2020 | 2:02 PM IST

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plan to raise the legal age for marriage of women carry “enormous” economic and social gains for the world’s second-most populous nation, according to the State Bank of India.

The benefits range from lowering maternal deaths and improving nutrition levels in the near term to putting more girls in college and enabling women to achieve greater financial independence in the long-term, Soumya Kanti Ghosh, an economist with SBI, wrote in a report to clients Thursday.

“This is clear from the data,” Ghosh said. “The working age population increases with high marriage age.”

While the mean female marriage age

Topics : sbi Child Marriage women Soumya Kanti Ghosh Narendra Modi

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