Although there is extensive evidence about early marriage around the world, there is still little known about this practice in Peru. In fact, in Peru, it is more common for teenagers and young people to live together than to marry formally.  The authors collected the experiences of young people who, between the ages of 14 and 21, had started living together – or getting married – and/or had become mothers or fathers. They explore the motivations that led them to start a life as a couple as well as the implications of this process on their sexual and reproductive health and on the elimination of intergenerational cycles of poverty and gender inequality.

The report is based on the analysis of the qualitative data of a sub-sample of the longitudinal study Young Lives in Peru.  It is part of the Young Marriage and Parenthood Study, which also took place in Ethiopia, India, and Zambia, and was funded by IDRC.  This report was first published in Spanish here.