We study the causal impact of imposition of the first Taliban government during 1996-2001 on women's age at first marriage in Afghanistan. The Talibans were dominantly Pashtuns and established a theocratic government that strictly enforced numerous restrictions on women and girls. Our estimation strategy exploits the variation in the age of exposure to the regime across ethnic identities in a difference-in-difference framework. We find that exposure to the Taliban regime at younger ages raised the age at first marriage for Tajik/Uzbek women relative to those belonging to other ethnic groups by nearly 7 months. This indicates that women who were about to enter the marriage market and belonged to dominant ethnic groups that were politically opposed to the Taliban were less likely to be negatively impacted by the Taliban's strict enforcement of the Sharia law on women. We obtain similar findings with regard to women's age at first birth. Further, our findings do not appear to be driven by pre-existing trends in these outcomes. The relative increase in education of younger Tajik/Uzbek women appear to be a potential mechanism driving our findings. As women's age at marriage has important intergenerational welfare implications, our results indicate potentially lasting human capital effects of the Taliban regime on Afghan society.
