IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ctl/louvde/v81y2015i1p13-25.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sex Ratios, Polygyny, and the Value of Women in Marriage - A Beckerian Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Shoshana GROSSBARD

    (San Diego State University)

Abstract

Gary Becker's theories of marriage were mentioned as one of the reasons why he was awarded the Nobel prize in economics in 1992 and were emphasized by Becker: his first article on the family published in a major journal (Becker 1973) is a theory of marriage and the chapters on marriage in his influential Treatise on the Family (Becker 1981, 1991) come first. Becker's theoretical models of marriage all view marriages as small non-profit firms engaged in household production, thereby featuring one of the basic tenets of the New Home Economics that Becker pioneered with Jacob Mincer while both were at Columbia University in the 1960s (see Becker 1960, 1965; Mincer 1962, 1963).

Suggested Citation

  • Shoshana GROSSBARD, 2015. "Sex Ratios, Polygyny, and the Value of Women in Marriage - A Beckerian Approach," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 13-25, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvde:v:81:y:2015:i:1:p:13-25
    DOI: 10.1017/dem.2014.15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/dem.2014.15
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1017/dem.2014.15?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eugene Choo & Aloysius Siow, 2006. "Who Marries Whom and Why," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 175-201, February.
    2. Rao, Vijayendra, 1993. "The Rising Price of Husbands: A Hedonic Analysis of Dowry Increases in Rural India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(4), pages 666-677, August.
    3. Shoshana Amyra Grossbard & Alfredo Marvao Pereira & Shoshana Grossbard, 2010. "Will Women Save more than Men? A Theoretical Model of Savings and Marriage," CESifo Working Paper Series 3146, CESifo.
    4. David De La Croix & Fabio Mariani, 2015. "From Polygyny to Serial Monogamy: A Unified Theory of Marriage Institutions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(2), pages 565-607.
    5. Michele Tertilt, 2005. "Polygyny, Fertility, and Savings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(6), pages 1341-1370, December.
    6. Bishai, David & Grossbard, Shoshana, 2007. "Far Above Rubies: The Association Between Bride Price and Extramarital Sexual Relations in Uganda," IZA Discussion Papers 2982, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Shang-Jin Wei & Xiaobo Zhang, 2011. "The Competitive Saving Motive: Evidence from Rising Sex Ratios and Savings Rates in China," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(3), pages 511-564.
    8. d’Albis, Hippolyte & de la Croix, David, 2012. "Missing daughters, missing brides?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 358-360.
    9. repec:cup:jdemec:v:81:y:2015:i:01:p:7-11_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Du, Qingyuan & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2013. "A theory of the competitive saving motive," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 275-289.
    11. Duncan Thomas, 1990. "Intra-Household Resource Allocation: An Inferential Approach," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(4), pages 635-664.
    12. Ran Abramitzky & Adeline Delavande & Luis Vasconcelos, 2011. "Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 124-157, July.
    13. Grossbard-Shechtman, Shoshana & Lemennicier, Bertrand, 2000. "Marriage contracts and the law-and-economics of marriage: an Austrian perspective," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 665-690, June.
    14. Grossbard, Shoshana, 1976. "An economic analysis of polygamy," MPRA Paper 81135, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Maria Porter, 2016. "How do sex ratios in China influence marriage decisions and intra-household resource allocation?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 337-371, June.
    16. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Bernard Fortin & Guy Lacroix, 2002. "Marriage Market, Divorce Legislation, and Household Labor Supply," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(1), pages 37-72, February.
    17. Jacob Mincer, 1962. "Labor Force Participation of Married Women: A Study of Labor Supply," NBER Chapters, in: Aspects of Labor Economics, pages 63-105, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Philip H. Brown, 2009. "Dowry and Intrahousehold Bargaining: Evidence from China," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(1).
    19. Siwan Anderson, 2007. "The Economics of Dowry and Brideprice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 151-174, Fall.
    20. Gary S. Becker, 1960. "An Economic Analysis of Fertility," NBER Chapters, in: Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, pages 209-240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Grossbard-Shechtman, Shoshana Amyra, 1984. "A Theory of Allocation of Time in Markets for Labour and Marriage," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(376), pages 863-882, December.
    22. repec:hal:pseose:hal-00759478 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Frances Woolley, 1996. "Getting the better of Becker," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 114-120.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kota Ogasawara & Mizuki Komura, 2022. "Consequences of war: Japan’s demographic transition and the marriage market," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(3), pages 1037-1069, July.
    2. Leeson, Peter T. & Suarez, Paola A., 2017. "Child brides," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 40-61.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grossbard, Shoshana, 2016. "Marriage and Marriage Markets," IZA Discussion Papers 10312, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Zhang, Yuan & Sun, Shiyi, 2024. "Gender imbalance, wife’s bargain power and shrinking household size in Rural China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    3. Grossbard, Shoshana, 2023. "Spouses as Home Health Workers and Cooks: Insights for Applied Research," IZA Discussion Papers 16182, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Linguère Mously Mbaye & Natascha Wagner, 2017. "Bride Price and Fertility Decisions: Evidence from Rural Senegal," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(6), pages 891-910, June.
    5. Dirk Bethmann & Robert Rudolf, 2018. "Happily ever after? Intrahousehold bargaining and the distribution of utility within marriage," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 347-376, June.
    6. Simon Chang & Rachel Connelly & Ping Ma, 2016. "What Will You Do If I Say ‘I Do’?: The Effect of the Sex Ratio on Time Use within Taiwanese Married Couples," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 35(4), pages 471-500, August.
    7. Ran Abramitzky & Adeline Delavande & Luis Vasconcelos, 2011. "Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 124-157, July.
    8. Doepke, M. & Tertilt, M., 2016. "Families in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1789-1891, Elsevier.
    9. Kota Ogasawara & Erika Igarashi, 2021. "The Impacts of the Gender Imbalance on the Marriage Market: Evidence from World War II in Japan," Papers 2102.00687, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    10. Chris Klaveren & Bernard Praag & Henriette Maassen van den Brink, 2008. "A public good version of the collective household model: an empirical approach with an application to British household data," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 169-191, June.
    11. Brown, Philip H. & Bulte, Erwin & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2011. "Positional spending and status seeking in rural China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 139-149, September.
    12. Robert A. Pollak, 2019. "How Bargaining in Marriage Drives Marriage Market Equilibrium," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 297-321.
    13. Siwan Anderson, 2007. "The Economics of Dowry and Brideprice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 151-174, Fall.
    14. Fang, Li & Tian, Chuanhao, 2018. "Housing and marital matching: A signaling perspective," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 27-46.
    15. Anja Sautmann, 2011. "Partner Search and Demographics: The Marriage Squeeze in India," Working Papers 2011-12, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    16. Manuel Santos Silva & Stephan Klasen, 2021. "Gender inequality as a barrier to economic growth: a review of the theoretical literature," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 581-614, September.
    17. Josh Angrist, 2002. "How Do Sex Ratios Affect Marriage and Labor Markets? Evidence from America's Second Generation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 997-1038.
    18. Maria Porter, 2016. "How do sex ratios in China influence marriage decisions and intra-household resource allocation?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 337-371, June.
    19. Balasubramanian, Pooja & Ibanez, Marcela & Khan, Sarah & Sahoo, Soham, 2024. "Does women's economic empowerment promote human development in low- and middle-income countries? A meta-analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    20. Anukriti, S. & Kwon, Sungoh & Prakash, Nishith, 2022. "Saving for dowry: Evidence from rural India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Marriage; Economic analysis; Marriage market; Sex ratio; Polygamy; Brideprice; Dowry;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ctl:louvde:v:81:y:2015:i:1:p:13-25. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sebastien SCHILLINGS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iruclbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.