Young Pakistanis are moving away from cousin marriage owing to the risk of genetic disorders

Syed Hashim Haider, a 29 year old software engineer in Lahore, not only married out of his family but also out of his Islamic sect. This is unusual in Pakistan, which has one of the highest rates of cousin marriage globally—65%.1

But a new generation of Pakistanis is moving away from consanguineous marriages, with families’ increasing awareness of the severe health challenges that have roots in such a match. These include stillbirths, low birthweight, increased mortality, congenital malformations, spinal muscular atrophy, thalassaemia, sensorineural hearing loss, and cystic fibrosis.2

Haider’s parents are cousins, but he says that his family had already started a “positive” trend of marrying out of the family when his older brothers chose their own non-familial partners. “Many people get married to their cousins because of undue parental pressure, but I feel privileged that I did not feel any such pressure,” says Haider. He has seen many cousin marriages in his extended family—–usually forced arranged marriages. “The problems within such forced marriages aggravate faster when a child is born with a genetic disorder,” he says. “A blame game starts within these marriages over the carrier of the gene that led to the disease.”

Consanguineous marriages in Pakistan fell from 67.9% in 2006-07 to 63.6% in 2018, with more educated and financially independent women and men able to marry for love rather than family obligation. One 2022 study reported that women with higher education were much less likely to be in cousin marriages than women with no formal education.3 And women residing in urban areas were 33% less likely to be in cousin marriages than their rural counterparts.

But Salman Kirmani, chair …