Perception of rural adolescents and parents regarding child marriage: Findings of a community-based cross-sectional study in Bangladesh

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Islam,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?>

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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Reviewer #1: 1. The authors investigate potential differences in attitudes towards child marriage between parents and adolescents who participated in the study. This is an interesting angle. However, the Background/Introduction section should provide a rationale for why examining these differences in perception and attitudes is important to explore.

2. A recent paper examines differences in attitudes towards child marriage in the context of an edutainment intervention. The authors may want to reference this article.

Islam, Muhammed Nazmul, Atonu Rabbani, Animesh Talukder, Rubaiya Riya Siddiqua, Sanjana Nujhat, Mushfiqur Rahman, Antara Roy, and Malabika Sarker. “Edutainment and the prevention of under-age marriages: The evaluation of a television series designed to promote positive role models in Bangladesh.” Journal of Development Effectiveness 16, no. 2 (2024): 159-186.

3. The study uses a survey questionnaire to understand perceptions of child marriage. It would be helpful to explain the basis for these questions. Did the authors adopt any pre-existing tools? While all domains seem reasonable, what is the theoretical justification for them? I recommend linking the questions to relevant literature to provide justification and a foundation for the survey instrument.

4. Related to #3, the authors should elaborate on what the different domains mean and how questions across different domains relate to the scope of each specific domain.

5. Related to #4 (and #3), how did the researchers validate the questions?

6. In Table 3, what do "good," "average," and "poor" perception mean? Do they indicate how favorable respondents feel about child marriage outcomes?

7. P.11, lines 257-262 seem to repeat information from the Methods section. I recommend incorporating this into the Methods section without repetition.

8. The rows in Table 4 add up to 100% within each type of respondent. Isn’t reporting either "yes" or "no" sufficient?

9. The authors have not established expectations for the quantitative findings, making it difficult to interpret Table 4. In most cases, especially for the first three "domains," there doesn't seem to be much difference between the two types of respondents. Is this expected or not?

10. The only discernible differences appear in the "Environmental" domain. Why is this the case?

11. Authors should report the correlation of answers across domains and questions. There should be tests for internal reliability of the survey tools.

12. The Discussion section primarily repeats the findings. This section should be used to suggest implications of the results and relate the findings to the broader literature. I request that the authors revise it accordingly.

Reviewer #2: In this study, the authors assess the perception of child marriage among adolescents and parents, focusing on differences in perceptions across the two groups. They rely on a primary survey of 1030 participants residing in four sub-district administrative units in rural Bangladesh. The cross-sectional survey involved face-to-face interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire that aimed to collect information on respondents’ demographic and socio-economic characteristics as well as their responses to 25 statements that measured their perception towards child marriage on four dimensions- social, economic, psychological and environmental. The authors conduct a multinomial logistic regression to determine the factors influencing perceptions towards child marriage. This was complemented by chi-square analysis to test if the differences in perceptions across each of the attributes considered are statistically significant. The authors present two key results. Firstly, they find that perception towards child marriage differs significantly across individuals with different level of education, current marital status and type of family (joint or nuclear) while socio-economic status, occupation, religion and gender do not explain differences in perception towards child marriage. Secondly, the authors find that adolescents and parent perceptions on social, economic and psychological attributes of child marriage do not differ significantly, whereas perceptions regarding environmental attributes of child marriage differ significantly across the two groups.

The study deals with a relevant social issue that persists in the context of the study- Bangladesh, as well as in other developing countries. It is important to understand how individuals perceive child marriage and to identify factors that drive support towards a practice that has been empirically established to have negative socio-economic outcomes for women, and the society at large. The authors adopt an appropriate method to this inquiry by using a semi-structured interview to gather data on this sensitive topic as it offers important insights into individual perceptions which are often difficult to interpret. Collecting sensitive data from a sample of 1030 individuals, along with useful demographic and socio-economic characteristics provides for a rich source of data. I also appreciate the safeguards the authors have adopted in carrying out this survey. By ensuring the surveys are conducted in anonymity and in the absence of other family members, they prevent some potential bias in responses.

However, the paper is not without its shortcomings. The analysis could be developed further to throw light onto the interactive effects of the various socio-economic characteristics and differences across adolescents and parental perceptions. The objective of the study and therefore, its implications, could be made more nuanced and clarified. The authors do not explain in enough detail how the attributes were chosen and classified into the four domains used in the analysis. Similarly, while there is some discussion on the factors that drive the observed perceptions, it is not clear where these conclusions are drawn from. I discuss these shortcomings and suggestions for improvement below. Taking these into consideration, I recommend that the paper be re-assessed for publication after the authors have made major revisions to the current manuscript.

Major Revisions:

1. Abstract/Introduction: The abstract describes the main objective of the study to be to “assess the perception of rural adolescents and parents regarding child marriage”. However, from the introduction and the discussion of the results, it is evident that the study focusses sufficiently on a comparison of differences in perceptions across adolescents and parents. The research question and objective need to be clarified to highlight a) that the study aims to compare differences in perceptions on child marriage across adolescents and parents; b) that the objectives include identifying factors/characteristics that influence perceptions on child marriage

2. Sample selection: I recommend adding a note on the representative of the unions of rural Bangladesh. There is some discussion towards the end (in the last session) but it would be appropriate to discuss the same earlier on.

3. The steps undertaken to survey the respondents has been discussed in great detail. However, certain methodological approaches need further explanation. Currently, there is no discussion on why the four domains- social, economic, psychological and environmental have been chosen. Moreover, the definition of each of these domains, especially with regards to child marriage needs to be included. More details on how the 25 questions/attributes were chosen and classified into the four domains would help the readers understand the concepts better. I am especially finding it difficult to distinguish between the attributes classified under social and environmental domains.

4. Page 10: Lines 235-244- I understand the responses to the statements were coded on a binary scale. However, attributing “correct answers” to 1 and “wrong answers” to 0 is not straightforward. Firstly, with the statements being subjective in nature, I do not think it is appropriate to classify them as correct and wrong answers. A more scientific approach would be to rank responses on a standardized scale where a higher value indicates support against child marriage. I would also recommend including the logistic regression specification in the manuscript.

5. Throughout the paper, the terms “good” and “bad” perceptions of child marriage have been used. It would be better to define these terms to ensure that readers understand that “good perception” as referred to in the paper implies support against child marriage.

6. In the discussion of the results, the authors refer to dowry, social norms etc. as reasons for the unanimous support in favor for child marriage prevalent in the sample. However, there is no explanation to how these conclusions were drawn. Are these conclusions drawn from evidence from open ended questions included in the survey? If so, please include details of the same. In case open-ended questions or any form of narrative analysis was undertaken, please include more details of how this was carried out, how surveyors recorded these responses and how the analysis was carried out.

7. I infer that the two main take-aways from this paper are that certain characteristics such as education, family structure and marital status can explain differences in perceptions on child marriage, and that perceptions on how child marriage affects environmental attributes differ across adolescents and parents. I would highlight these findings with further clarity in the conclusion. Moreover, I think it is possible to conduct further analyses to explore the intersection of these two aspects. For instance, it would be interesting to see if perceptions differ across adolescents and adults, given a level of education or gender.

8. It might be useful to include a discussion of potential confounders of perception of child marriage. For example, it is possible that surveyed parents who were themselves subjected to child marriage might harbor different perceptions than those who did not. Distinguishing/controlling for these factors would help identify factors that affect differential perceptions better. It might also be worth conducting further analyses after distinguishing between parents with sons and daughters. Would expect to see differences in perceptions between the two sets of parents but it would be interesting to see if the factors that drive perceptions differ across them.

9. The introduction and conclusion emphasize the importance of including the negative effects of child marriage in school curriculum to help change perceptions. Although this might have the desired effects, there is no evidence directly arising out of the analysis in this paper that suggests this. I recommend avoiding drawing such conclusions that are not directly linked to the evidence arising out of the study. Similarly, on page 17 (lines 337-340), the authors imply that social pressure is driving child marriages in Bangladesh. However, it is not clear if the questionnaire dealt with questions of social validation. I recommend the authors refer to the evidence supporting this statement or refrain from making them.

Minor Revisions:

1. More citations required:

a. Page 3, Line 72

b. Page 4, Line 94-95

c. Page 5, line 114

d. Page 6, Line 141

2. Page 4, line 98: Prevalence of child marriage has been adequately discussed. I would recommend balancing this discussion out with more evidence from the literature on the negative effects of child marriage on women’s outcomes and socio-economic outcomes, in general.

3. Page 5: The discussion of religion as a mediating factor for individual perceptions can be clarified further. The hypothesis seems to be that religion is an important mediating factor but the discussion needs to be refined to highlight how religion is expected to affect perceptions.

4. Page 6: Lines 133-143- can be moved to the introduction where the prevalence of child marriage in developing countries is discussed. Could also consider expanding on this discussion of the negative consequences of child marriage and highlight how this is motivates the current study.

5. Page 19: Line 369- “son-in-law” to be changed to “daughter-in-law”

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review.docx

Thank you for your revised submission of the manuscript entitled “Perception of rural adolescents and parents regarding child marriage: Findings of a community-based cross-sectional study in Bangladesh.” We appreciate the thoughtful responses you provided to the initial round of reviewer comments, and we acknowledge the improvements made—particularly in the discussion section. However, both referees thought you need to do a better job and have highlighted their concerns. 

After a careful evaluation of the revised manuscript and the accompanying reviewer comments, we believe that additional revisions are necessary before the manuscript can be considered for publication. The reviewer has raised several substantive and methodological issues that should be addressed to strengthen the manuscript.

<h3 data-end="878" data-start="844">Key points requiring revision:</h3>

1. Terminology Clarity : The use of terms such as “poor” or “good” perceptions remains ambiguous. The reviewer strongly recommends replacing these with clearer terms such as “support” or “do not support” child marriage, to avoid misinterpretation.
2. Conceptual Framing of Statements : The classification of survey items into domains needs further clarification. It is important to distinguish between statements about causes, consequences, and value judgments. Some statements currently included may reflect observations rather than normative views.
3. Sampling and Context : Greater detail is needed on how the four unions were selected. Additionally, while we understand the need to protect participant identity, the manuscript would benefit from indicating the broad geographic location (e.g., district or upazila) if permissible under ethical guidelines.
4. Wealth Index Categorization : The authors should clarify how wealth indices were constructed. If quintiles were used, it would be clearer to refer to them as such instead of using less precise terms like “middle class.”
5. Statistical Presentation : Table 4 should be revised to present, for each characteristic, the percentage of parents and adolescents who support child marriage, along with corresponding p-values. This would improve the interpretability and relevance of the findings.
6. Discussion Section : The discussion currently includes several statistical reiterations that belong in the results section. The authors should streamline this section and focus on interpretation and implications. The reviewer also encourages more detailed consideration of intervention strategies tailored to parents and adolescents, as well as reflection on why adolescents may exhibit more favorable attitudes toward child marriage than parents.
7. Additional Points : Minor issues such as missing publication years in references should also be corrected.

In summary, while the manuscript shows promise and addresses an important issue, further revisions are necessary to enhance clarity, methodological transparency, and analytical depth. We encourage you to address each of the reviewer’s points thoroughly in your next revision. Since the reviewers have come up with "major revision" as a recommendation, I will appreciate if you address these concerns carefully in this round.

We look forward to receiving a revised version that incorporates these changes.

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 23 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
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If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Nishith Prakash, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

Reviewer #1: Comments on the revised version of the manuscript entitled “Perception of rural adolescents and parents regarding child marriage: Findings of a community-based cross-sectional study in Bangladesh”

The authors have provided itemized responses to the comments received in the first round. I have several more suggestions that I believe will help the authors to improve the manuscript.

1. I apologize but I still find the terms “poor” perception towards child marriage ambiguous. Why not use the terms such as “Least Favorable” views towards child marriage which is much easy interpret?

2. This is related to a comment I had earlier about the justifying the relevance of the perceptions towards early child marriage. Aren’t there prior works that show how perceptions towards a social phenomenon such as early marriage determine actual outcomes?

3. Page 10, lines 240-1: How did the researchers choose four unions to carry out the study? Is the present research based on another existing or ongoing research?

4. Authors of the study also did not reveal the location of the study. Was it restricted by the IRB? Obviously, we don’t want the identities of the individual participants. But sharing the broad locations (district or upazila) can help the readers to contextualize the findings. Authors should consider this.

5. Page 14, lines 340-3: How were the wealth indexes categorized? Were the divided into quintiles? If so, the authors should just use quintiles instead of using less well-defined terms such as “middle class.”

6. Do the perceptions of the parents towards early child marriage vary by the sex of their children?

7. The authors repeat and mention lots of statistics in the discussion section. Many of them are redundant. They should be in the Findings section and authors should am to interpret the results more succinctly in the Discussion section. This will also help shortening the Discussion section.

8. [Minor comment] Page 7, lines 171-8: The authors referenced to a paper without the publication year. Authors may want to revise the sentence.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for addressing comments raised in the review. I appreciate the changes made to the manuscript, especially to the discussion section. Here are some more comments to help improve the paper:

1. The statement selection into the domains is unconvincing. Although there is more clarity on what the different domains are in the revised version, I think it is important to distinguish between statements that refer to causes and consequences of child marriage. Moreover, some statements such as "child marriage is a burning issue", "occurs due to parents" etc. simply indicate what respondents think is happening and agreeing to these statements may not necessarily mean they do not support child marriage.

2. Although you mention what "good" and "bad" perceptions are as used in the manuscript, I strongly advice you to change the terminology throughout the manuscript to "not support" and "support" child marriage. A good perception regarding child marriage could be mistaken to mean they perceive child marriage to be good and this is confusing for the reader.

3. Thank you for adding Table 4 in response to the previous comments on intersectionality. In its current form, Table 4 is telling us what percent of those who support (or not) child marriage are adults and adolescents for each characteristic. Why arent the p-values from the chi-square test not reported for each group then? It might be more insightful if you can rework this table to show for each given characteristic, what percent of parents and adolescents supported child marriage and if this difference is significant. For instance, among those with secondary education, how many adolescents and parents perceived child marriage an issue (rather than looking at what percent of those with secondary education and reported "good perception" were adolescents and parents).

4. In the discussion section, authors could include more implications from the study. Since a large part of the paper looks into differences in perceptions among 2 groups, who should the proposed awareness interventions target? Are there specific topics that need to be dealt with differently for either groups? How do the authors explain why the adolescents harbor more favorable stance in support of child marriage than parents?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Dear Dr. Islam,

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 09 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols . Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols .

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Nishith Prakash, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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Reviewer #1: Comments on “Perception of rural adolescents and parents regarding child marriage: Findings of a community-based cross-sectional study in Bangladesh”

Comments

The manuscript has clarified the issues raised before. I have some specific suggestions, many of which are editorial in nature.

1. In Table 3, the agreement and disagreement always add to 100 percent in each row (as they should). Do we need both columns then? How about only agreement and showing the differences between the two columns? This suggestion applies to Table 5 as well.

2. In Table 4, the columns for parents and adolescents identical. Is there a mistake?

3. Figure 3 does not bode well aesthetically. Why use 3D bars? Please consider making it simpler, preferably making it in greyscale to make it printer friendly.

4. The authors should check the grammar and spelling of the manuscript more carefully. Is “Tripping Point Intervention” correct? I believe it is “Tipping”, not “Tripping.”

5. The authors should add an AI statement to the manuscript.

Reviewer #2: Here are a few suggestions the authors could consider working on:

1. Stick to the same terminology throughout the paper: change “positive perception” usages in the sampling and sample size section (line 250-251, for example).

2. P1 and P2 seem to be calculated ex-post and therefore cannot be used as sample size calculation parameters. If supported by other evidences, please discuss the same. If not, the sample size calculation can be moved to the appendix and presented as ex-post power calculation rather than ex-ante.

3. Remove unsubstantiated claims in the discussion section: For example, lines 476-478 are not supported with adequate citations.

4. Highlight the differences in perception among adolescents and parents in the environment domain. If youngsters support for CM cannot be fully explained, discuss the puzzle and propose what policy can do to help in this case.

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what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

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Perception of rural adolescents and parents regarding child marriage: Findings of a community-based cross-sectional study in Bangladesh

PONE-D-24-18904R3

Dear Dr. Islam,

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Academic Editor

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