IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/econjl/v132y2022i645p1927-1977..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Brides of Boko Haram: Economic Shocks, Marriage Practices, and Insurgency in Nigeria

Author

Listed:
  • Jonah M Rexer

Abstract

Marriage markets in rural Nigeria are characterised by bride price and polygamy. These customs may diminish marriage prospects for young men, causing them to join militant groups. Using an instrumental variables strategy, I find that marriage inequality increases civil conflict in the Boko Haram insurgency. To generate exogenous shocks to the marriage market, I exploit the fact that young women delay marriage in response to favourable pre-marital economic conditions, which increases marriage inequality primarily in polygamous villages. The same shocks that increase marriage inequality and extremist violence also lead women to marry fewer and richer husbands, generate higher average marriage expenditures, and increase insurgent abductions. The results shed light on the marriage market as an important driver of violent extremism.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonah M Rexer, 2022. "The Brides of Boko Haram: Economic Shocks, Marriage Practices, and Insurgency in Nigeria," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(645), pages 1927-1977.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:132:y:2022:i:645:p:1927-1977.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ej/ueac003
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lucia Corno & Nicole Hildebrandt & Alessandra Voena, 2020. "Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 879-915, May.
    2. Joshua D. Angrist & Adriana D. Kugler, 2008. "Rural Windfall or a New Resource Curse? Coca, Income, and Civil Conflict in Colombia," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 191-215, May.
    3. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    4. Blattman, Christopher & Annan, Jeannie, 2016. "Can Employment Reduce Lawlessness and Rebellion? A Field Experiment with High-Risk Men in a Fragile State," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(1), pages 1-17, February.
    5. Hodler, Roland & Raschky, Paul A., 2014. "Economic shocks and civil conflict at the regional level," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 530-533.
    6. Kleibergen, Frank & Paap, Richard, 2006. "Generalized reduced rank tests using the singular value decomposition," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 97-126, July.
    7. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, March.
    8. Kenneth A. Schultz & Justin S. Mankin, 2019. "Is Temperature Exogenous? The Impact of Civil Conflict on the Instrumental Climate Record in Sub‐Saharan Africa," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(4), pages 723-739, October.
    9. Sharon Maccini & Dean Yang, 2009. "Under the Weather: Health, Schooling, and Economic Consequences of Early-Life Rainfall," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 1006-1026, June.
    10. Melissa Dell & Benjamin F. Jones & Benjamin A. Olken, 2014. "What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 740-798, September.
    11. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "A Theory of Marriage: Part II," NBER Chapters, in: Marriage, Family, Human Capital, and Fertility, pages 11-26, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath & Ernest Sergenti, 2004. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 725-753, August.
    13. Erick Gong & Katherine A. Sullivan, 2017. "Conflict and Coffee: Are Higher Coffee Prices Fuelling Rebellion in Uganda?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 26(3), pages 322-341.
    14. Alessandra Voena & Lucia Corno, 2015. "Selling daughters: age at marriage, income shocks and bride price tradition," 2015 Meeting Papers 1089, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Francis J. DiTraglia & Camilo García-Jimeno, 2021. "A Framework for Eliciting, Incorporating, and Disciplining Identification Beliefs in Linear Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 1038-1053, October.
    16. Cilliers, Jacobus & Dube, Oeindrila & Siddiqi, Bilal, 2015. "The white-man effect: How foreigner presence affects behavior in experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 397-414.
    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. Hugues Champeaux & Elsa Gautrain & Karine Marazyan, 2024. "Men’s premarital migration and marriage payments: Evidence from Indonesia," DeFiPP Working Papers 2402, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    2. Minali Grover & Ajay Sharma, 2025. "Women's inheritance rights reforms and impact on women's empowerment: evidence from India," Papers 2510.10437, arXiv.org.
    3. Siwan Anderson, 2022. "Unbundling female empowerment," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 1671-1701, November.
    4. Stefan Dimitriadis, 2024. "Bribery, insecurity, and firm performance: Evidence from the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(6), pages 1061-1086, June.
    5. Amr Ragab & Ayhab F. Saad, 2023. "The effects of a negative economic shock on male marriage in the West Bank," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 789-814, September.
    6. Maurizio Bussolo & Jonah Matthew Rexer & Lynn Hu, 2025. "From Patriarchy to Policy: Norms, Votes, and Gender Equal Laws," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11135, The World Bank.
    7. De Swardt, Christiaan & Hartwig, Renate, 2025. "The marriage squeeze: Measuring and explaining marriage market dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa," Ruhr Economic Papers 1162, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.

    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. Martin-Shields, Charles P. & Stojetz, Wolfgang, 2019. "Food security and conflict: Empirical challenges and future opportunities for research and policy making on food security and conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 150-164.
    2. Ishak, Phoebe W., 2021. "Murder nature weather and violent crime in Brazil," Discussion Papers 2021/2, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    3. Ishak, Phoebe W., 2022. "Murder nature: Weather and violent crime in rural Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    4. Giuliano, Paola & Matranga, Andrea, 2020. "Historical Data: Where to Find Them, How to Use Them," CEPR Discussion Papers 15362, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Josephson, Anna & Michler, Jeffrey D. & Kilic, Talip & Murray, Siobhan, 2026. "The mismeasure of weather: Using earth observation data for estimation of socioeconomic outcomes," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Giuseppe De Feo & Giacomo Davide De Luca, 2020. "Weak States: Causes and Consequences of the Sicilian Mafia," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(2), pages 537-581.
    7. Michler, Jeffrey D. & Josephson, Anna & Kilic, Talip & Murray, Siobhan, 2022. "Privacy protection, measurement error, and the integration of remote sensing and socioeconomic survey data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    8. Lucia Corno & Nicole Hildebrandt & Alessandra Voena, 2020. "Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 879-915, May.
    9. Matthias Flückiger & Markus Ludwig, 2018. "Youth Bulges and Civil Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(9), pages 1932-1962, October.
    10. Achim Ahrens, 2015. "Civil conflicts in Africa: Climate, economic shocks, nighttime lights and spill-over effects," SEEC Discussion Papers 1501, Spatial Economics and Econometrics Centre, Heriot Watt University.
    11. Akresh, Richard & Lucchetti, Leonardo & Thirumurthy, Harsha, 2012. "Wars and child health: Evidence from the Eritrean–Ethiopian conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 330-340.
    12. Corno, Lucia & Voena, Alessandra, 2023. "Child marriage as informal insurance: Empirical evidence and policy simulations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    13. Austin L. Wright, 2016. "Economic Shocks and Rebel," HiCN Working Papers 232, Households in Conflict Network.
    14. Berlanda, Andrea & Cervellati, Matteo & Esposito, Elena & Rohner, Dominic & Sunde, Uwe, 2024. "Medication against conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    15. Philip Verwimp & Jan Van Bavel, 2014. "Schooling, Violent Conflict, and Gender in Burundi," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 28(2), pages 384-411.
    16. Adelaide Baronchelli & Roberto Ricciuti, 2018. "Climate change, rice production, and migration in Vietnamese households," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-86, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. infocede, 2010. "Books and guns: the quality of schools in conflict zones," Documentos CEDE 20111, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    18. Díaz, Juan-José & Saldarriaga, Victor, 2023. "A drop of love? Rainfall shocks and spousal abuse: Evidence from rural Peru," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    19. Tarsia, Romano, 2024. "Heterogeneous effects of weather shocks on firm economic performance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124251, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Andreas Georgiadis & Liza Benny & Paul Dornan & Jere Behrman, 2021. "Maternal Undernutrition in Adolescence and Child Human Capital Development Over the Life Course: Evidence from an International Cohort Study," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(352), pages 942-968, October.

    More about this item

    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:oup:econjl:v:132:y:2022:i:645:p:1927-1977.. 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: Oxford University Press or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.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.