This summative country report draws upon fifteen years of evidence captured by the Young Lives study in India. It provides an overview and synthesis of a much more detailed evidence base, much of which can be found on the project website. Some new analysis has been completed for this report to bring it right up to date. Many of the findings are drawn from journal articles and working papers which have been subject to separate review processes.

This document is a summary of the Young Lives India Country Report Reaching the last child: Evidence from Young Lives India, highlighting the context in which this research was conducted, key findings, and implications for policy and practice. The full report is available here, detailing acknowledgements, photo credits and references. 

One in three girls married in childhood worldwide lives in India (UNICEF 2014), and child marriage is linked to adolescent fertility, lowered female autonomy, reduced access to education and earning opportunities, and the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Yet, relatively little is known about life after marriage for adolescents and married young couples in India. A recent study, ‘Marital and fertility decision-making: the lived experiences of adolescents and young married couples in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, India’, explores these experiences in two southern Indian states.

This report presents findings from a qualitative sub-study exploring adolescent girls and young couples’ experiences of marital and fertility decision-making in two southern Indian states (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana).