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Partner Search and Demographics: The Marriage Squeeze in India

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Abstract

If women marry younger than men, increased population growth causes a sur- plus of women in the marriage market. This paper introduces search frictions into a matching model with transferable utility and age-dependent match payo s to study if this so-called marriage squeeze has caused a dowry \in ation" in India. Using data from Karnataka it is shown that the observed shifts in the age distributions and sex ratio of unmarried men and women during the marriage squeeze lead to higher dowries conditional on the partners' ages. A GMM estimate of the model parameters suggests that average dowries have increased as well.

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  • Anja Sautmann, 2011. "Partner Search and Demographics: The Marriage Squeeze in India," Working Papers 2011-12, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bro:econwp:2011-12
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    1. > Political Economy > Political Economy of Asia > Political Economy of India

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    Cited by:

    1. Scott Fulford, 2012. "The Puzzle of Marriage Migration in India," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 820, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 22 Oct 2013.
    2. 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.
    3. Chiplunkar, Gaurav & Weaver, Jeffrey, 2023. "Marriage markets and the rise of dowry in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    4. Lucia Corno & Nicole Hildebrandt & Alessandra Voena, 2016. "Weather Shocks, Age of Marriage and the Direction of Marriage Payments," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def040, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    5. Bhaskar, Venkataraman, 2015. "The Demographic Transition and the Position of Women: A Marriage Market Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 10619, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Scott Fulford, 2013. "The changing geography of gender in India," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 833, Boston College Department of Economics.

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