Early Marriage and Motherhood from an Intergenerational Perspective: The Case of Turkey

This mixed-methods study investigates whether there is an intergenerational transmission of early marriage and childbearing from mothers to daughters in Turkey. Using data from a national survey that explored fertility and family life in urban Turkey (n = 1007), I investigated the impact of the mother's age at first marriage and childbirth on daughter's risk of early entry into marriage and motherhood. Also, drawing on a small sample of in-depth interviews (n = 11), I explored various dimensions and underlying mechanisms of the transmission of marriage and fertility behavior from one generation to the next. Both the quantitative and qualitative findings point to a strong link between mothers' and daughters' early marriage and fertility behavior in Turkey, confirming the main hypotheses of this study. The main contribution of this study is that it is the first of its kind to explore this issue in a Middle Eastern setting; it provides a new data point and brings a comparative perspective to the existing research.