Bride Price and Female Education by Ashraf, Bau, Nunn and Voena

A new NBER working paper suggests that the institution of bride price, often regarded as a repugnant transaction, may provide incentives to educate girls, which increases their price.

Bride Price and Female Education

Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Nathan Nunn, Alessandra Voena

NBER Working Paper No. 22417
Issued in July 2016

Traditional cultural practices can play an important role in development, but can also inspire condemnation. The custom of bride price, prevalent throughout sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia as a payment by the groom to the family of the bride, is one example. In this paper, we show a perhaps surprising economic consequence of this practice. We revisit one of the best-studied historical development projects, the INPRES school construction program in Indonesia, and show that previously found small effects on female enrollment mask heterogeneity by bride price tradition. Ethnic groups that traditionally engage in bride price payments at marriage increased female enrollment in response to the program. Within these ethnic groups, higher female education at marriage is associated with a higher bride price payment received, providing a greater incentive for parents to invest in girls' education and take advantage of the increased supply of schools. However, we see no increase in education following school construction for girls from ethnicities without a bride price tradition. We replicate these findings in Zambia, where we exploit a similar school expansion program that took place in the early 2000s. While there may be significant downsides to a bride price tradition, our results suggest that any change to this cultural custom should likely be considered alongside additional policies to promote female education.

A matching market for polygamy: SecondWife.com

Here is a (combinatorial?) site for plural marriage for Muslims: SecondWife.com

“then marry women of your choice, two or three, or four but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly, then only one”
- Quran 4:3

Pollak on Marriage Markets

Here's a new NBER paper on marriage by Bob Pollak:

Marriage Market Equilibrium

Robert A. Pollak

NBER Working Paper No. 22309
Issued in June 2016
NBER Program(s):   CH   LS 

The standard Beckerian analysis of marriage market equilibrium assumes that allocation within marriage implements agreements made in the marriage market. This paper investigates marriage market equilibrium when allocation within marriage is determined by bargaining in marriage and compares that model with the standard model. When bargaining in marriage determines allocation within marriage, the marriage market is the first stage of a two-stage game. The second stage, bargaining in marriage, determines allocation within each marriage. This analysis is consistent with any bargaining model with a unique equilibrium as well as with Becker's "altruist model," the model that underlies the Rotten Kid Theorem. Marriage-market participants are assumed to rank prospective spouses on the basis of the allocations they foresee emerging from bargaining in marriage. The first stage game, the marriage market, determines both who marries and, among those who marry, who marries whom (assortative marriage). When bargaining in marriage determines allocation within marriage, the appropriate framework for analyzing marriage market equilibrium is the Gale-Shapley matching model, not the Koopmans-Beckmann assignment model. These models have different implications for who marries, for who marries whom, and for the Pareto efficiency of marriage market equilibrium.

Georgia plans national matchmaking service as marriage rate falls (the country, not the U.S. state)

The Guardian has the story:
Georgia plans national matchmaking service as marriage rate falls
National database of singletons proposed to help pull country away from ‘demographic catastrophe’.

"A nationwide headcount of eligible bachelors and bachelorettes has been announced in Georgia, apparently in a bid to help tackle the slowing birth rate.

Georgia’s non-profit Demographic Development Fund (DDF) believes that a drop in the rate of marriages and births has brought the small post-Soviet nation to the cusp of a “demographic catastrophe”.

They say apps such as Tinder won’t adequately tackle the problem, and that a government-backed dating service is needed instead.

“We will take a census of all singles, widows, widowers, the divorced and enter their details in a database,” Davit Khizanishvili, the fund’s president, announced.

The DDF has already started to profile Georgia’s singletons, taking note of personal details such as “weight, height and zodiac sign” and adding them to the database, which they say will be administered by a special agency."

Stable marriage without the deferred acceptance algorithm

WuMoby Wulff & Morgenthaler

• March 12, 2016

HT: James J. O'Donnell, MD.

How can you tell you're an economist? Valentine's day economics

How can you tell you're an economist?  Maybe if Valentine's Day makes you think of dating sites as congested matching markets.  Here are two views from The Economist about thickness and congestion in dating markets:
Optimising romance: To find true love, it helps to understand the economic principles underpinning the search

Valentine’s day economics--Would a dating app just for economists work?

A Valentine's day salute to Gale and Shapley and the deferred acceptance algorithm

The University of California celebrates David Gale and Lloyd Shapley with an article appropriate to Valentine's Day:

How a matchmaking algorithm saved lives
Long before dating sites, a pair of economists delved into the question of matchmaking, and hit upon a formula with applications far beyond romance.

The article has Jane Austen characters in the explanation of the deferred acceptance algorithm, and pictures, including these:

They also link to this animated, interactive Berkeley mathsite exhibit on the stable marriage problem. (It is part of a larger MathSite interactive mathematics exhibit supported by the David Gale Fund for Interactive Mathematics.)
*********************

Valentine's day reminds me of a post from a few years ago:

What has G-d been doing since the Creation? (Matchmaking, of course...))

Happy Valentine's day to all, from Philadelphia:)

Baby booms and marriage squeezes

What is the consequence of a baby boom on marriage prospects, in societies in which husbands are customarily a few years older than their wives?  It's a 'marriage squeeze'. Here's a recent interesting article from Time, focusing on  marriages among observant Mormons and Jews (to others of the same religion, that is...), and, among Jews, the slightly different marriage patterns amongYeshivish Orthodox and Hasidic Jews (apparently Hasidic husbands and wives are often the same age).

What Two Religions Tell Us About the Modern Dating Crisis by Jon Birger
"The imbalance in the Orthodox marriage market boils down to a demographic quirk: The Orthodox community has an extremely high birth rate, and a high birth rate means there will be more 18-year-olds than 19-year-olds, more 19-year-olds than 20-year-olds, and so on and so on. Couple the increasing number of children born every year with the traditional age gap at marriage—the typical marriage age for Orthodox Jews is 19 for women and 22 for men, according to Michael Salamon, a psychologist who works with the Orthodox community and wrote a book on the Shidduch Crisis—and you wind up with a marriage market with more 19-year-old women than 22-year-old men.

"There is no U.S. Census data on religion. But Joshua Comenetz, chief of the Census Bureau’s Geographic Studies Branch, studied the demographics of Orthodox Jews back in his college professor days at University of Florida. Based on his academic research, Comenetz contended that each one-year age cohort in the Orthodox community has 4 percent more members than the one preceding it. What this means is that for every 100 22-year-old men in the Orthodox dating pool, there are 112 19-year-old women—12 percent more women than men."
...

"Both Yeshivish and Hasidic Jews are extremely pious and socially conservative. They live in tight-knit communities. They are known for having large families. And both groups use matchmakers to pair their young people for marriage.

"There is, however, one major cultural difference between the two groups: Hasidic men marry women their own age, whereas Yeshivish men typically marry women a three or four years their junior.

“In the Hasidic world, it would be very weird for a man to marry a woman two years younger than him,” said Alexander Rapaport, a Hasidic father of six and the executive director of Masbia, a kosher soup kitchen in Brooklyn. Both Rapaport and his wife were 36 when I interviewed him.

When I asked Rapaport about the Shidduch Crisis, he seemed perplexed. “I’ve heard of it,” he said, “but I’m not sure I understand what it’s all about.”

In fact, there is no Shidduch Crisis in the Hasidic community. “When I mention the term to Hasidim, they don’t know what I’m talking about,” said Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology and Jewish studies at City University of New York and an expert on Hasidic Jews."
**************

Here's an earlier post on the shidduchim crisis:

When assortative matching on age can interfere with matching

and here's a link to an earlier article by Mr Birger:

Unequal Gender Ratios at Colleges Are Driving Hookup Culture

HT: Scott Kominers

Maiden names are repugnant in Japan

The NY Times has the story: Japan’s Top Court Upholds Law Requiring Spouses to Share Surname

"Japan’s highest court upheld a law dating back more than a century that requires married couples to share the same surname, rejecting a claim on Wednesday that it discriminates against women by effectively forcing them to give up their names in favor of their husbands’.

"The ruling was a blow to Japanese women seeking to keep their maiden names after marriage. Some couples have chosen not to register their marriages — opting instead to stay in common-law relationships with fewer legal protections — in order to keep separate surnames.
...
"The prohibition against separate surnames has survived decades of challenges in the courts and in Parliament, but it was the first time a suit seeking to overturn it had reached the Supreme Court. Ten of the court’s 15 justices ruled that the ban, first imposed in 1898, was consistent with constitutional protections for gender equality.

"Although the law does not specify which spouse’s surname must be used, wives adopt their husbands’ names in an estimated 95 percent of cases.

"The chief justice, Itsuro Terada, said the law did not impose an undue burden on women in part because they could continue using their maiden names in their professional lives, a practice that has become more widely accepted in recent years.

"The government began allowing married civil servants, for instance, to use their former surnames for official business in 2001.

“The issue of separate names for spouses should be debated in Parliament,” Justice Terada said, throwing the issue back to the legislature.

"The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will have to calibrate its response carefully. Mr. Abe has positioned himself as an ally of working women, contending that Japan needs to keep more women in the labor force as its population shrinks and ages. But many members of his right-leaning Liberal Democratic Party support the surname law, and the party has quashed previous parliamentary initiatives aimed at changing it.

Newspaper surveys have shown that a slim majority of the public favors changing the law to allow couples to keep separate surnames."

Adultery is no longer illegal in S. Korea--and share price of condom maker soars

The Guardian has the story just before the court decision...: South Korean court to rule on making adultery legal

"South Korea’s Constitutional Court is set to rule on a motion to strike down a controversial law that outlaws adultery and threatens violators with jail time.

It marks the fifth time in 25 years that the apex court has considered the constitutional legality of a 1953 statute which makes South Korea one of the few non-Muslim countries to regard marital infidelity a criminal act.

And the statute isn’t a historical quirk that simply gathers legislative dust.

In the past six years, close to 5,500 people have been formerly arraigned on adultery charges - including nearly 900 in 2014."


...and just after:
Condom maker's shares surge after South Korea legalises adultery
Unidus, the country’s largest contraceptive manufacturer, saw a 15% spike in the value of its stock on same day law banning extramarital sex was repealed

"In South Korea, extramarital sex just got a whole lot safer, after the country’s highest court overturned a law banning adultery.

The abolition of the 62-year-old law on Thursday saw the share price of the country’s biggest condom maker, Unidus, surge 15% – the daily limit on the country’s Kosdaq market. "

Bride price and the education of brides

Here's a new paper that casts bride price in a somewhat different light, with data from Indonesia and Zambia suggesting that girls who grow up in communities with bride price receive more education than those who grow up in similar communities that don't have bride price:


Bride Price and the Returns to Education, by Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Nathan Nunn, and  Alessandra Voena.  November 16, 2014

Abstract:

ABSTRACT
Traditional cultural practices can play an important role in development, but can also inspire condemnation. The custom of bride price, prevalent throughout sub-Saharan Africa and in parts of Asia as a payment of the groom to the family of the bride, is one example. In this paper, we show a surprising economic consequence of this practice. We revisit one of the best-studied historical development projects, the INPRES school construction program in Indonesia, and show that previously found null results on female enrollment mask heterogeneity by bride price tradition. Ethnic groups that traditionally engage in bride price payments at marriage increased female enrollment in response to the program. Within these ethnic groups, higher female education at marriage is associated with a higher bride price payment received, providing a greater incentive for parents to invest in girls' education and take advantage of the increased supply of schools. For those girls belonging to ethnic groups that do not practice bride price, we see no increase in education following school construction. We replicate these same findings in Zambia, where we exploit a similar school expansion program that took place in the early 2000s. While there may be significant downsides to a bride price tradition, our results suggest that any change to this cultural custom should likely be considered alongside additional policies to promote female education.

No-nup agreements: contracts for cohabitation

The NY Times has a story on contracts that some unmarried couples are signing: All the Conventional Cohabitation, but No Nuptials

"With more couples choosing to live together without marrying — the Census Bureau estimates that more than eight million couples were cohabiting in the United States in 2013, up from five  million in 2006 — the potential pool of clients for these types of agreements is far from small.

Maria Cognetti, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, said most of the clients who ask for a cohabitation agreement have gone through marriage and divorce, and are in no hurry to revisit the travails of that journey. “They don’t want to get remarried, but they want the protection a pre-nup would provide,” said Ms. Cognetti, a divorce lawyer in Camp Hill, Pa.

...

Mr. Hertz said that behavioral stipulations, such as so-called weight clauses, are becoming obsolete, and any reference to intimate acts could render the agreement null and void due to prostitution laws and no-fault rules. “Agreements between unmarried couples are becoming more like marital agreements, and are equally ‘no-fault’ when it comes to allocating assets,” Mr. Hertz explained in an email. Mr. Hertz said fewer same-sex couples are seeking cohabitation agreements now that marriage has become an option for them in many states.

The market for affairs

Here's the latest on the growing 'infidelity economy', facilitated by the website Ashley Madison, about which I've blogged before.

Adultery is good for your marriage – if you don’t get caught, says infidelity website boss As global membership to the world’s biggest infidelity site soars to over 24 million, its founder explains the international appeal of adultery

"Famed for its catchy motto – “Life is short. Have an affair” – the dating service is free for women but paying for men.
...
"The website is currently in the throes of a rapid global expansion: since launching in Canada on Valentine’s Day in 2002, it has attracted more than 24 million members in 37 countries, with South Korea launched last week."

Repugnant transaction watch: New Hampshire Senate votes to repeal anti-adultery law

Here's the story, which comes with this map of states with anti-adultery laws:

"Adultery isn't just a crime in the eyes of your spouse. In 21 states, cheating in a marriage is against the law, punishable by a fine or even jail time.

The New Hampshire state Senate voted Thursday to repeal its anti-adultery law, sending the bill to Gov. Maggie Hassan, who says she's likely to sign it into law. Under the law the Legislature voted to repeal, adultery is a Class B misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of up to $1,200.

"I don't think there's any appetite in New Hampshire to use police powers to enforce a marriage," state Rep. Tim O'Flaherty, the bill's sponsor, said during a public hearing last month.

Last year, Colorado repealed its anti-adultery law.

States' anti-adultery laws are rarely enforced, a vestige of our country's Puritanical beginnings, says Naomi Cahn, a law professor at the George Washington University Law School."

Polygamy in Kenya

Polygamy is an ancient practice in Kenya, but proposed new legislation that codifies that existing wives need not be consulted about new wives is causing some controversy. Here are two headlines that give the picture even before you start reading the stories...

Kenya’s new marriage law legalises polygamy
Kenyan Christian leaders oppose polygamy bill

From the first story:
"Kenya’s male-dominated parliament passed a new controversial marriage law not only legalises polygamy, but allows men to marry without consulting their other spouses. A majority of lawmakers - all men - even agreed to drop a proposal to ban bride price payments (usually in the form of cows). 

According to local news reports, half of Kenya’s 69 female MPs refused to take part in the debate held in the 349-member parliament last week. The women who did attend parliament stormed out in protest. 

Traditionally, first wives are supposed to give prior approval for their husband’s second marriage. According to Samuel Chepkong’a, the MP who proposed the amendment to this custom, however, no consultation is necessary because a woman who gets married under customary law already knows the marriage is open to polygamy. 

“When you marry an African woman, she must know the second one is on the way and a third wife… this is Africa,” Chepkong’a was quoted as saying by Kenya’s Capital News website. "

And from the second story:
"NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) Christian leaders are appealing to President Uhuru Kenyatta not to sign into law a proposed new marriage bill that legalizes polygamy.
...
"But the National Council of Churches of Kenya, the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, have rejected it, saying the law will undermine Christian principles of marriage and family.

The Rev. Peter Karanja, general secretary the Kenyan church council, said the bill demeans women and fails to respect the principle of spouses’ equality in marriage."

Do high earners marry each other?

Here's a paper that finds that they do:

Marry Your Like: Assortative Mating and Income Inequality

Jeremy Greenwood, Nezih Guner, Georgi Kocharkov, Cezar Santos

NBER Working Paper No. 19829
Issued in January 2014
NBER Program(s):   EFG 

Has there been an increase in positive assortative mating? Does assortative mating contribute to household income inequality? Data from the United States Census Bureau suggests there has been a rise in assortative mating. Additionally, assortative mating affects household income inequality. In particular, if matching in 2005 between husbands and wives had been random, instead of the pattern observed in the data, then the Gini coefficient would have fallen from the observed 0.43 to 0.34, so that income inequality would be smaller. Thus, assortative mating is important for income inequality. The high level of married female labor-force participation in 2005 is important for this result.

And then there were 17 states that have same sex marriage

New Mexico Becomes 17th State to Allow Gay Marriage

"The New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously affirmed on Thursday the right of same-sex partners to marry in the state, reasoning that the “protections and responsibilities that result from the marital relationship shall apply equally” to them and to opposite-sex couples.

"With the ruling, which takes effect immediately, New Mexico becomes one of 17 states and the District of Columbia to permit same-sex marriage. Thirty-three states limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. "

Minimum age of marriage

Israel has raised the legal minimum age of marriage to 18, but this is unlikely to prevent the early marriages which circumvented the prior minimum age of 17...

17-year-old wives: Law passed too late for us

Several groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews, Israeli-Arabs conduct underage marriages, say new law, to raise minimum age for marriage, will not make great difference. With 11,000 underage marriages a year, will law change current custom?

"A new law passed by the Knesset on Monday that permits marriage starting from the age of 18 is not impressing Hasidic members of the haredi public and several groups with the Israeli-Arab sector in which underage marriage is quite common. In many such communities, there are couples who tie the knot before their 17th birthday – the minimum age before the new law.

According to figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics, 11,747 girls under the age of 18 were married in Israel during 2011. From 2000 to 2009, 19,863 girls married at the age of 18; 15,020 girls said their vows by their 17th birthday; and 2,548 girls up to the age of 16 committed to their partner for the rest of their lives.

According to Hasidic custom, the sons of distinguished rebbis marry even earlier in order to minimize the time frame between puberty and their wedding, and to prevent young males from inappropriate thoughts or worse – sinful deeds.

The legislation is not expected to raise the minimum age for marriage in those communities, as they already ignore the existing law. The ceremony at underage marriages in these communities is conducted privately by rabbis who do not report the event to the authorities. The registration for the wedding is completed at a later date, when both the bride and the groom reach the legal age."

When assortative matching on age can interfere with matching

Here's an article addressed to the shidduchim crisis, that leaves some orthodox Jewish women without a husband. The article highlights a video made by young men who married happily after relaxing the customary insistence that the bride be younger than they.

"A recent YouTube video produced by NASI, the North American Shidduch Initiative, suggests that young boys can and should marry older girls — even if the girl is four months his senior, or, God-forbid, one year and three months older (what a crisis!)."

Yemeni girl's speech against child marriage goes viral

Al Jazeera has the story, and the moving video, with an 11 year old girl speaking out against child marriage: Yemeni girl's speech against child marriage goes viral