IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/umedbu/7515.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Consumption Smoothing, Migration and Marriage: Evidence from Rural India

Author

Listed:
  • Rosenzweig, Mark R.
  • Stark, Oded

Abstract

Migration in India, particularly in rural areas, is dominated by the movements of women for the purpose of marriage. We seek to explain these mobility patterns by examining marital arrangements among Indian households. In particular, we hypothesize that the marrying out of daughters to locationally distant, dispersed yet kinship-related households, are manifestations of implicit inter-household contractual arrangements aimed at mitigating income risks and facilitating consumption smoothing in an environment characterized by information costs and spatially covariant risks. Analysis of longitudinal South Indian village data lends support to the hypothesis. Marriage cum migration contributes significantly to a reduction in the variability of household food consumption. Farm households afflicted with more variable profits tend to engage in longer distance marriage cum migration. The hypothesized and observed marriage cum migration patterns are in dissonance with standard models of marriage or migration which are concerned primarily with search costs and static income gains.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosenzweig, Mark R. & Stark, Oded, 1987. "Consumption Smoothing, Migration and Marriage: Evidence from Rural India," Bulletins 7515, University of Minnesota, Economic Development Center.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:umedbu:7515
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.7515
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/7515/files/edc87-11.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.7515?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. Caldwell, John C & Reddy, P H & Caldwell, Pat, 1986. "Periodic High Risk as a Cause of Fertility Decline in a Changing Rural Environment: Survival Strategies in the 1980-1983 South Indian Drought," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(4), pages 677-701, July.
    2. Keeley, Michael C, 1977. "The Economics of Family Formation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 15(2), pages 238-250, April.
    3. Smith, Richard J & Blundell, Richard W, 1986. "An Exogeneity Test for a Simultaneous Equation Tobit Model with an Application to Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 679-685, May.
    4. Lucas, Robert E B & Stark, Oded, 1985. "Motivations to Remit: Evidence from Botswana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 901-918, October.
    5. Becker, Gary S, 1973. "A Theory of Marriage: Part I," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 813-846, July-Aug..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Robert Kaestner, 1995. "The Effects of Cocaine and Marijuana Use on Marriage and Marital Stability," NBER Working Papers 5038, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Olga Shemyakina, 2013. "Patterns in Female Age at First Marriage and Tajik Armed Conflict [Les évolutions de l’âge des femmes au premier mariage et le conflit armé Tadjike]," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(3), pages 303-343, August.
    3. de la Briere, Benedicte & de Janvry, Alain & Lambert, Sylvie & Sadoulet, Elisabeth, 1997. "Why do migrants remit?," FCND discussion papers 37, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    4. Olga Shemyakina, 2009. "The Marriage Market and Tajik Armed Conflict," HiCN Working Papers 66, Households in Conflict Network.
    5. Thomas Gries & Veronika Müller, 2020. "Conflict Economics and Psychological Human Needs," Working Papers CIE 135, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    6. Vaillant, Nicolas G. & Harrant, Valérie, 2008. "Determinants of the likelihood of finding the right partner in an arranged marriage: Evidence from a French matchmaking agency," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 657-671, April.
    7. Michael Svarer, 2007. "Working Late: Do Workplace Sex Ratios Affect Partnership Formation and Dissolution?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    8. Bergstrom, Ted & Schoeni, Robert F, 1996. "Income Prospects and Age-at-Marriage," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 9(2), pages 115-130, May.
    9. Elul, Ronel & Silva-Reus, Jose & Volij, Oscar, 2002. "Will you marry me?: A perspective on the gender gap," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 549-572, December.
    10. Francisca Antman, 2007. "Who Cares for the Elderly? Intrafamily Resource Allocation and Migration in Mexico," Discussion Papers 06-031, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    11. Wong, Linda, 2003. "An Empirical Study of Darwin's Theory of Mate Choice," Working Papers 187, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    12. Yoko Niimi & Thai Hung Pham & Barry Reilly, 2009. "Determinants of Remittances: Recent Evidence Using Data on Internal Migrants in Vietnam," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 19-39, March.
    13. Murat G. Kırdar & Meltem Dayıoğlu & İsmet Koç, 2018. "The Effects of Compulsory-Schooling Laws on Teenage Marriage and Births in Turkey," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(4), pages 640-668.
    14. Lydon, Reamonn & Chevalier, Arnaud, 2002. "Estimates of the effect of wages on job satisfaction," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20081, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Li, Sanxi & Sun, Hailin & Wang, Tong & Yu, Jun, 2016. "Assortative matching and risk sharing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 248-275.
    16. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:10:y:2007:i:15:p:1-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Bansak, Cynthia & Dziadula, Eva & Zavodny, Madeline, 2023. "The Value of a Green Card in the U.S. Marriage Market: A Tale of Chain Migration?," IZA Discussion Papers 15911, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Eugenia Markova & Barry Reilly, 2007. "Bulgarian Migrant Remittances and Legal Status: Some Micro-Level Evidence from Madrid," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 5(1), pages 55-69.
    19. Lixin Colin Xu & Christine Zhen-Wei Qiang & Limin Wang, 2003. "The Timing of Marriage in China," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 4(2), pages 343-357, November.
    20. Vaillant, Nicolas G., 2004. "Estimating the time elapsed between ending a relationship and joining a matchmaking agency: Evidence from a French marriage bureau," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 789-802, December.
    21. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer/Household Economics;

    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:ags:umedbu:7515. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dcumnus.html .

    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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dcumnus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.