Young Women’s Transition to Marriage and Household Formation in Difficult Times

In contrast to many Western countries, marriage is still a universal event in young women’s life courses and is the normative precondition for legitimate sexual relationships and reproduction in MENA countries (Rashad et al., 2005). Marriage represents an important marker in the transition to adulthood because young women leave their parent’s home after marriage and either move in with their husband’s family or start an independent life with their husbands in a nuclear family setting (Assaad and Ramadan, 2008; Yount et al., 2012).