Education and Ethnic Intermarriage: Evidence from Higher Education Expansion in Indonesia

Antonio Di Paolo and Khalifany-Ash Shidiqi ()
Additional contact information
Khalifany-Ash Shidiqi: Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta and University of Barcelona

No 202403, AQR Working Papers from University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group

Abstract: In this paper, we analyse the effect of educational attainments on interethnic marriages in Indonesia, a multi-ethnic emerging country. The empirical analysis is based on data from the Java Island obtained from the 2014 wave of the Indonesian Family Life Survey, combined with administrative data about the location and year of establishment of Higher Education Institutions (HEI). To estimate causal effects, we exploit variation in exposure to HEI by birth year and district of residence in an IV/TSLS framework. Specifically, we employ as instrument for education the number of HEI located in a radius of 10 kilometres from the centroid of the district of residence at age 18. The analysis is carried out at the individual level, with separate estimations for males and females. The results indicate that years of schooling, college attendance and completion positively affect the likelihood of exogamy, i.e. having a partner from a different ethnicity. The estimated coefficients are somewhat larger for females than for males, and all the robustness checks provide stable results, supporting their causal interpretation. The effect of schooling does not appear to be heterogeneous depending on parental education, and mixed parental ethnicity. However, it is lower for individuals with Javanese ethnicity compared to those belonging to other ethnic groups. We also analyse potential mechanisms, highlighting that migration/residential location and changes in social norms could be significant channels underlying the causal chain between higher education expansion, educational attainments, and interethnic marriages. Overall, the results reported in this paper point out that the increase in educational attainments induced by the expansion of higher education could contribute to the reduction of ethnic segregation.

Keywords: Education; interethnic marriages; higher education expansion; Indonesia JEL classification: I21; I23; J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2024-05, Revised 2024-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-sea and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ub.edu/irea/working_papers/2024/202409.pdf (application/pdf)

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:aqr:wpaper:202403

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in AQR Working Papers from University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bibiana Barnadas ().