The impact of sex ratios before marriage on household saving in two Asian countries: The competitive saving motive revisited

Charles Horioka () and Akiko Hagiwara ()

Review of Economics of the Household, 2017, vol. 15, issue 3, No 2, 739-757

Abstract: Abstract This paper estimates a household saving rate equation for India and Korea using long-term time series data for the 1975–2010 period, focusing in particular on the impact of the pre-marital sex ratio on the household saving rate. To summarize the main findings of the paper, it finds that the pre-marital sex (or gender) ratio (the ratio of males to females) has a significant impact on the household saving rate in both India and Korea, even after controlling for the usual suspects such as the aged and youth dependency ratios and income. It has a negative impact in India, where the bride’s side has to pay substantial dowries to the groom’s side at marriage, but a positive impact in Korea, where, as in China, the groom’s side has to bear a disproportionate share of marriage-related expenses including purchasing a house or condominium for the newlywed couple.

Keywords: Competitive saving motive; Household saving rate; Pre-marital sex ratio; Saving for marriage; Korea; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D14 D91 E21 J11 J12 O16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11150-016-9344-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Impact of Sex Ratios before Marriage on Household Saving in Two Asian Countries: The Competitive Saving Motive Revisited (2016)
Working Paper: The Impact of Sex Ratios before Marriage on Household Saving in Two Asian Countries: The Competitive Saving Motive Revisited (2016)
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:kap:reveho:v:15:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11150-016-9344-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/11150/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11150-016-9344-y

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Economics of the Household is currently edited by Shoshana Grossbard

More articles in Review of Economics of the Household from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().