Does Dowry Drive Labor Export? Evidence from Pakistan

Ahmed Raza Cheema and Ian Coxhead

The Developing Economies, 2022, vol. 60, issue 4, 173-205

Abstract: In Pakistan, one household in six receives remittances from family members working elsewhere. Using household data from a national living standards survey, we find that propensity to receive remittances is strongly associated with a higher number of dependent girls relative to total children in a household. The effect is significant for younger households and for households with lower permanent income, and increases as girls approach expected marriage age. After controlling for other demographic and economic factors known to be associated with migration, we conclude that the need to save for dowry to be paid on the marriage of a daughter is likely to contribute to the labor export decision.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/deve.12334

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:deveco:v:60:y:2022:i:4:p:173-205

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0012-1533

Access Statistics for this article

The Developing Economies is currently edited by Katsuji Nakagane

More articles in The Developing Economies from Institute of Developing Economies Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().