Child marriage persists in many countries and has severe impacts on health, education, economic and social status of girls. Child marriage has many interlinked causes. This study aimed to explore the drivers of child marriage in specific contexts in Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia.

Multiple intersecting drivers, which were present in different degrees in each country setting, influenced the occurrence of child marriage. We found that child marriage is a manifestation of social norms, particularly related to girls’ sexuality, which are intersecting with other factors at individual, social, material, and institutional level – most prominently poverty or economic constraints. Child marriage was, in some cases, a result of girls’ agentic choices. Efforts to prevent child marriage need to take these realities of girls and their families into account.