Divorce during the Transition to Adulthood in Rural Malawi.
Studies of the transition to adulthood in sub-Saharan Africa frequently examine the timing and sequencing of key role transitions, such as school leaving, sexual activity, marriage, and parenthood. Parental death and divorce may accelerate these transitions, potentially compromising the life chances of African youth by limiting the material resources and family support that are available during the transition to adulthood. These dimensions of vulnerability, however, do not disappear after a young person has completed these role transitions and may continue to have important consequences for the well-being of young adults who have ostensibly completed the transition to adulthood. Marriage, in particular, is often considered foundational to female adulthood, but it can be an uncertain, reversible transition that does not assure that women have ‘safely’ made it to adulthood. The limitations of marriage as the paramount adulthood marker may be particularly salient in contexts such as Malawi where the median age at first marriage is relatively young and partnerships are fragile, placing young women at risk of divorce at early ages and leaving them more vulnerable in the period immediately following a union dissolution. Using data from a seven-year longitudinal study of youth in Malawi, I examine how parental death and divorce are related to the transition to marriage and risk of early divorce, and explore how parental death and divorce influence young women's well-being in the year following their own divorce.
