Marriage Payement and Women’s Bargaining Power in Rural Bangladesh

Nazia Mansoor

JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, 2018, vol. 84, issue 1, 79-105

Abstract: This study examines the postmarriage bargaining power of women—specifically, their decision-making power with regard to fertility—vis-à-vis imbalances in matching in the marriage market. Applying a multinomial logit model to data on rural Bangladesh for 1998/99, the study gauges women's relative empowerment: (i) at the time of marriage (measured by the bride price as a share of total marriage payments) and (ii) postmarriage (measured by women's use of the contraceptive pill). The empirical findings reveal that a higher bride price (as a share of total household marriage payments) has three main outcomes: it increases the predicted probability of women (i) using the contraceptive pill, (ii) spacing births further apart, and (iii) choosing to have fewer children.

Keywords: Bangladesh; Women’s bargaining power; Marriage payments; Dowry; brideprice; Contraceptive use; Contraceptive pill; Number of children born; Child spacing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-03-01
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvde:v:84:y:2018:i:1:p:79-105

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