The analysis is based on data from the 2012
Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) for Guinea. This
is the latest DHS available. Table 1 provides basic
statistics on the age at first marriage for women. Two
samples are considered: women ages 18 to 22, which is
the youngest age group that can be used to measure
child marriage in the country1
, and women ages 18-49
(the women’s questionnaire in the DHS collects data for
women up to age 49). Clearly, a large share of women
marry below the age of 18, and many do so before the
age of 15, but there are some differences in the likelihood
of marrying as children between the two groups. This
suggests that child marriage may have decreased over
time, but not substantially so, as will be discussed below.