Making Sense of Marriage: Gender and the Transition to Adulthood in Nairobi, Kenya
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12525 |
| Author | Isabel Pike,Caroline W. Kabiru,Sanyu A. Mojola |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
I P University of Wisconsin-Madison
S A. M University of Michigan∗
C W. K African Population and Health Research Center∗∗ and Population
Council∗∗∗
Making Sense of Marriage: Gender and the
Transition to Adulthood in Nairobi, Kenya
Objective: The objective of this study was to
examine how young people in Nairobi, Kenya,
are making sense of marr iage, both in terms of
their own lives and its social signicance.
Background: In many sub-Saharan African
communities, marriage has been a fundamental
marker of the transition to adulthood. However,
union formation is changing, particularly in
urban areas—partnering is occurring later
and nonmarital cohabitation is increasingly
common with the pathways to union formation
differing by gender. Young people’s perspec-
tives on marriage are valuable for a deeper
understanding of these trends.
Method: A total of 74 in-depth interviews with
youth living in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, were
qualitatively analyzed with particular attention
Department of Sociology, Universityof
Wisconsin-Madison, 4471 Sewell Social Sciences Building,
1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706.
(ipike@wisc.edu).
∗Department of Sociology, Universityof Michigan, 500 S.
State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.
∗∗African Population and Health Research Center, Manga
Close, Off Kirawa Road, P.O. Box 10787-00100, Nairobi,
Kenya.
∗∗∗Population Council, Kenya, Avenue 5, 3rd Floor,Rose
Avenue, P.O. Box 17643-00500, Nairobi, Kenya.
Key Words: cohabitation, economic well-being, gender,
international, marriage, young adulthood.
to personal and normative understandings of
marriage along with how they vary by gender.
Results: Marriage emerged as an important
part of most respondents’ life projects, whether
or not they considered it key to socially recog-
nized adulthood. Attitudes differed by gender,
with young women’s greater ambivalence
and aversion toward marriage, particularly
early marriage, contrasting with young men’s
frustrated desire for marriage amidst economic
constraints. Young men’s main worry about
marriage was not being able to support a fam-
ily, whereas young women were often concerned
that marrying would thwart their aspirations
regarding education and work.
Conclusion: Marriage continues to be a sig-
nicant social marker of adulthood despite a
shifting demographic reality. Differences in
young people’s attitudes are related to gen-
dered concerns around marriage and economic
independence.
In many communities in sub-Saharan Africa,
marriage has been a fundamental step to being
recognized as an adult (Cole, 2005; Langevang,
2008; Mains, 2012; Masquelier, 2005; Sommers,
2012). However, union formation is undergo-
ing rapid change across the continent, particu-
larly in urban areas. Increasingly, couples are
partnering later and choosing to cohabit with-
out undergoing any religious, traditional, or civil
1298 Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (October 2018): 1298–1313
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12525
Gender and the Transition to Adulthood in Nairobi 1299
marriage ceremonies (Bocquier & Khasakhala,
2009; Calvès, 2016; Mokomane, 2005; Posel &
Rudwick, 2013). In Kenya’scapital city Nairobi,
this study’ssetting, these consensual unions, col-
loquially known as “come-we-stay,” predom-
inate, and their legal standing has become a
source of national policy debate (Bocquier &
Khasakhala, 2009; Chigiti, 2012). How then do
young women and men living amidst these shifts
in union formation view marriage? Do they con-
sider it central to their own lives, both current
and future? Do they think marriage is still nec-
essary to being seen as an adult by others?
Drawing on qualitative interviews from two
slum settlements in Nairobi, where between
60% and 70% of the population live in slums
or slum-like settings (UN-Habitat, 2008), we
examine how young people in these communi-
ties view marriage and whether their attitudes
differ by gender. We analyze their perspectives
from two vantage points. The rst examines their
personal evaluation of the centrality of marriage
to their life projects—“the socially attuned and
culturally inected aims and aspirations they
have for their life course” (Smith & Mbakwem,
2010, p. 345). The second examines how young
people assess their normative environment and
whether they consider marriage as a key marker
of adulthood. We then further analyze the gen-
dered patterns in attitudes that arise by examin-
ing how other themes around marriage and the
transition to adulthood —such as economic sta-
bility, having children, and leaving school—are
brought up in different ways by young men and
women.
M F U S-S
A
Marriage in sub-Saharan Africa was once con-
sidered early and universal (Van de Walle,
1968). However, survey data suggest that this
assessment is no longer accurate. The age at rst
marriage has risen considerably, particularly in
urban areas (Garenne, 2004, 2014; Shapiro &
Gebreselassie, 2014). In South Africa, where
declining marriage rates have been documented
since the 1960s, the median age at marriage
is now older than 30 years for both men and
women (Hunter, 2010; Statistics South Africa,
2015). In addition to later marriage, nonmarital
cohabitation is rising across the continent, par-
ticularly in urban areas (Bocquier & Khasakhala,
2009; Calvès, 2007; Mokomane, 2005; Posel &
Rudwick, 2013). The proportion of sub-Saharan
Africa’s population living in urban areas is
expected to rise from 40% in 2014 to 56% in
2050 (United Nations, 2014), making the con-
centration of these shifts in urban areas salient
for future marital trends in the region.
The continent-wide shifts in union formation
are reected at the national level in Kenya. Rural
and urban Kenyan women born in 1940 married,
on average, at around 18years of age (Garenne,
2014). By 2014, the age at marriage had risen
to 19.5 years for rural women and 21.5 years for
urban women. Among men, the median age of
marriage in 2014 was 19.5 years in rural areas
and 24.8 years in urban areas (Kenya National
Bureau of Statistics et al., 2015). Shifts in mar-
riage are especially striking in Nairobi, where
the median age of marriage is the highest in the
country—22.1 for women aged 25 to 49 years
and 26.1 for men aged 30 to 54 years—and
where the majority of young adults in unions
are cohabiting rather than married (Bocquier
& Khasakhala, 2009; Kenya National Bureau
of Statistics et al., 2015). In a 2001 survey,
Bocquier and Khasakhala (2009) found that
among adults aged 25 to 34 years and who were
in unions, 87% of men and 72% of women
were in informal cohabiting unions. Further-
more, only 1.4% of these unions were formal-
ized each year, suggesting that cohabitation is
generally not a prequel to marriage (Bocquier
& Khasakhala, 2009). Policy debate intensied
around “come-we-stay” relationships in 2012
when a proposal, which ultimately did not pass,
was put forward to recognize them legally as
marriages if they had lasted more than 6 months
(Chigiti, 2012). In this article, we examine how
young people living amidst these considerable
shifts in union formation view marriage.
G D P U
F
The predominant explanations for the rising age
at marriage differ by gender. For young women,
research suggests that a key driver is education,
and in particular its autonomy-enhancing effects
and the perceived incompatibility of schooling
with marriage (Lloyd, 2005; Mensch, Singh,
& Casterline, 2005; Shapiro & Gebreselassie,
2014). The smaller body of research on men’s
age at marriage in sub-Saharan Africa has drawn
on ideas in line with Oppenheimer’s theory of
marriage timing, which posits that economic
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