Minimum Age of Marriage, Dowry and Investment in Daughter’s Human Capital: A Game-Theoretic Exploration

Early marriage, especially of women, is a common phenomenon in developing countries like India. Given the well-established negative consequences that early marriage entails, several countries have enacted some form of minimum age of marriage law for women. However, such a legislation may entail a perverse consequence for the daughter in dowry-paying societies. This paper game-theoretically explores the impact of a rise in legal minimum age of marriage for women on the amount the parents spend on the daughter’s human capital accumulation. It argues that such a legal mandate may force the household to earmark less on the daughter’s human capital accumulation, because later marriages entail higher dowry expenditures. Hence poor parents are forced to save more for future dowry by spending less on their daughter’s human capital. Hence higher future dowries are financed by cutting back on daughter’s human capital investments.