Returns to Education in the Marriage Market : Bride Price and School Reform in Egypt

This paper investigates the marriage market returns to female education by examining the resources transferred from the groom to the bride and her family at the time of marriage, known as the bride price, as well as the husband’s imputed permanent income as an additional source of returns. The study exploits a school reform in Egypt that reduced the number of years required to complete primary education from six to five, creating exogenous variations in the timing of treatment across schools due to its staggered roll-out. To address identification issues, an instrumental variable estimator combined with a Two-Way Fixed Effects (TWFE) model at the birth year and primary school levels is employed. The findings reveal that the estimated return on a bride’s compulsory education is over three times higher in bride price and 20% higher in the husband’s imputed permanent income compared to those without compulsory education. These substantial marriage market returns outweigh labor market returns at the extensive margin of employment. Further empirical evidence suggests that higher female education potentially signals positive outcomes in terms of home production and child-rearing in Egypt, while educational assortative mating also appears to be an important mechanism.