I cannot say much about child marriages because I never encountered any happening around me. You can see what happens in lower middle and middle class families and draw a few parallels.

1/9 https://twitter.com/mazeem147/status/1314781738321801221

Subtle discussions about a girl's marriage begin as early as she turns 18 and joins college. Middle class families do not have any direct economic incentives to marry girls off at an early age. The goal always is to find a match while she is in college (before she turns 22)

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and marry her off as soon as she graduates. It seems to me that parents mostly do not have a nefarious intent in the process. Their preferences can be mainly categorized into 1- finding a good match and 2- avoiding social costs (follow the norms).

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(1) is reflective of altruistic preferences and (2) is reflective of a form of economic incentive. I have the following conjecture - a) Parents do keep in mind how and why marriage can go wrong for their daughter, b) Parents think that marriage is an eventuality

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c) Unmarried daughters after a certain age (which vary b/w 22-26) will bring social costs in various forms - family pressure, other siblings waiting in line, a sense of dire responsibility and an ability to fulfil it will define how society sees them as parents.

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Arguably parents are maximizing against the constraint which is the marriageable age (which will vary family to family). The preference is to find the best match but the constraint is the age limit which forces them to get the "job" done, sooner the better.

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So I would argue that even if there are no direct economic incentives for parents in poor households where child marriages can be a norm, social costs can force them to marry off girls at an early age.

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The social cost (social norms) phenomenon goes as far as defining the "success" and "respect" of both parents and daughters based on how marriageable the girl is (when unmarried) and how well settled she is when married.

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An unmarried daughter of an unmarriageable age is the ultimate curse that everyone wants to avoid. And this often transcends economic class but severity of its impact can vary.

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