Spatially-informed insights into early marriage and school dropout: An advanced bivariate binary multilevel model for understanding Ethiopia's context.

The phenomenon of school dropout, which entails the failure to meet the minimum educational requirements, and early marriage, which involves the marital union of girls prior to attaining 18 years of age, constitute crucial issues in Ethiopia. This research endeavor sought to identify the determinants of these two outcomes. A weighted sample of 3091 girls who had experienced early marriage and school dropout was drawn from the 2016 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) dataset and analyzed utilizing bivariate binary multilevel models featuring spatial effects. The prevalence rates of early marriage and school dropout were 62.9 % and 75.4 %, respectively. We observed non-uniform spatial distributions of early marriage and school dropout across Ethiopia. The odds ratio of the association between early marriage and school dropout was 1.39, indicating a significant interdependence of these two outcomes. The probability of early marriage and school dropout was estimated to be 1.63 and 1.18 times higher, respectively, for girls hailing from rural areas and 1.70 and 1.23 times higher, respectively, for those classified in the poorest wealth index, as compared to their counterparts. Therefore, stakeholders and policymakers must prioritize hotspots, socio-economic, and demographic factors to achieve a meaningful reduction in the incidence of early marriage and school dropout.