Special Collection 1 - Article 6 | Pages 175–206  

Divorce and Remarriage in Rural Malawi

By Georges Reniers

This article is part of the Special Collection 1 "Social Interactions and HIV/AIDS in Rural Africa"

Abstract

The demographic study of nuptiality in African countries is not very developed and often of secondary interest in a discussion of the proximate determinants of fertility. This paper uses unusual marriage history data to examine divorce and remarriage in rural Malawi.
Life table probabilities of divorce range from 40 to 65 percent and are among the highest on the continent. An investigation into the determinants of marital instability using proportional hazards models confirms the importance of kinship systems and female empowerment, but the mechanism underlying the high divorce rates in Malawi seems to be more complicated than that. This is, for example, illustrated in the effect of the polygyny variables. Marriage, divorce, and remarriage are further considered as empowering strategies that women deploy throughout their lives.

Author's Affiliation

• Georges Reniers - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom EMAIL

Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research

Knowledge, risk perceptions, and behaviors related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Malawi
Volume 44 - Article 20

Age patterns of under-5 mortality in sub-Saharan Africa during 1990‒2018: A comparison of estimates from demographic surveillance with full birth histories and the historic record
Volume 44 - Article 18

Sexual networks, partnership mixing, and the female-to-male ratio of HIV infections in generalized epidemics: An agent-based simulation study
Volume 33 - Article 15

Polygyny and HIV in Malawi
Volume 19 - Article 53

An Assessment of the KDICP and MDICP Data Quality: Interviewer Effects, Question Reliability and Sample Attrition
Special Collection 1 - Article 2

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