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Weather Shocks, Age of Marriage and the Direction of Marriage Payments

Author

Listed:
  • Lucia Corno

    (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
    Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)

  • Nicole Hildebrandt
  • Alessandra Voena

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the impact of variation in local economic conditions on the hazard into child marriage (i.e. prior to age 18) among young women in Africa and India. We show that rainfall shocks, a major source of income variation in these areas, have similar effects on crop yields but opposite effects on the early marriage hazard in the two regions: in Africa, droughts increase the hazard into early marriage, while in India, droughts decrease the hazard. We argue that the differential impact of drought on the marriage hazard can be explained by differences in the direction of traditional marriage payments in each region (bride price in Africa and dowry in India). Our results highlight the importance of understanding the relationship between prevailing cultural norms and household responses to economic shocks; as we show here, differences in prevailing customs can result in dramatically different household responses to aggregate income fluctuations..

Suggested Citation

  • 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).
  • Handle: RePEc:ctc:serie1:def040
    as

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    File URL: http://dipartimenti.unicatt.it/economia-finanza-def040.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income shocks; informal insurance; marriage; Africa; India; dowry; bride.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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