‘Arranged’ Marriage, Co-Residence and Female Schooling: A Model with Evidence from India

Indraneel Dasgupta (), Pushkar Maitra () and Diganta Mukherjee ()
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Pushkar Maitra: Monash University
Diganta Mukherjee: affiliation not available

No 3336, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: We model the consequences of parental control over choice of wives for sons, for parental incentives to educate daughters, when the marriage market exhibits competitive dowry payments and altruistic but paternalistic parents benefit from having married sons live with them. By choosing uneducated brides, some parents can prevent costly household partition. Paternalistic self-interest consequently generates low levels of female schooling in the steady state equilibrium. State payments to parents for educating daughters fail to raise female schooling levels. Policies (such as housing subsidies) that promote nuclear families, interventions against early marriages, and state support to couples who marry against parental wishes, are however all likely to improve female schooling. We offer evidence from India consistent with our theoretical analysis.

Keywords: arranged marriage; dowry; bride price; female literacy; marriage markets; stable marriage allocation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 D91 J12 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-dev and nep-lab
Date: 2008-02
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