Demographic and Health Surveys Methodology - Measure DHS

AGE AT FIRST MARRIAGEStatistics: Percent Distribution by Years of Age at First Marriage, Total, and According toCurrent Age GroupDefinitionPercents of women who first married or lived with a man before attaining the specified ages.A. Coverage: Women of all marital statuses.B. Numerator: Number of women whose first marriage or consensual union occurred before theyattained the specified age group.C. Denominator: Total number of women, including those who have never been married or in aconsensual union.CalculationA. Age at first marriage or first union: Difference between date when women began living with firsthusband or consensual partner and date of birth of woman in completed single years (in the DHSstandard recode, this difference is already calculated—V511).B. Numerators: Number of women below specified age categories. Women who have never marriednor lived in a consensual union are included in a separate category.C. Denominator is the number of women of all marital statuses. Ever-married sample denominatorsare adjusted by the all women factors.D. Numerators for each age group category are divided by the same denominator and multiplied by100 to obtain percentages.Handling of Missing ValuesNot applicable—birth dates of women and ages at first marriage were imputed if missing.Notes and ConsiderationsPercentages add up to 100 percent.Percents are not calculated for the age-at-first-marriage categories by cohorts of women where theyoungest member of the cohort has not yet completed the oldest age of the category. (For example,percents for the cohort of women 15–19 at the time of the survey will not be calculated for age categories18, 20, 22, and 25 because some women who have never been married are still below those ages andcould still marry or start to live in a consensual union before reaching those age categories).Guide to DHS Statistics 69 Updated September 2006