Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments
Age of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments
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DOI：
10.3982/ecta15505
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发表时间：
2020-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
6.1
通讯作者：
Voena, Alessandra
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Corno, Lucia;Hildebrandt, Nicole;Voena, Alessandra
我们研究了撒哈拉以南非洲和印度的总体经济状况如何影响结婚时间，特别是童婚。在这两个区域，婚姻都涉及大量的金钱或实物转移：撒哈拉以南非洲的彩礼和印度的嫁妆。在婚姻市场的一个简单均衡模型中，父母选择子女何时结婚，收入冲击影响结婚年龄，因为结婚付款是平滑消费的一个来源，特别是对妇女家庭来说。正如我们的模型所预测的那样，我们表明，干旱使年作物产量减少10%至15%，总收入减少4%至5%，对这两个地区40万名妇女的婚姻行为产生相反的影响：在撒哈拉以南非洲，干旱使每年的童婚风险增加3%，而在印度，干旱使童婚风险减少4%。干旱导致结婚年龄的变化与生育率的变化有关，特别是在撒哈拉以南非洲，并与观察到的婚姻付款下降有关。我们的研究结果表明，结婚年龄对总体经济条件的短期变化做出反应，婚姻支付决定了这种反应的迹象。这表明，为了制定成功的政策打击童婚和改善对女儿人力资本的投资，必须了解婚姻市场机构的经济作用。
We study how aggregate economic conditions affect the timing of marriage, and particularly child marriage, in Sub-Saharan Africa and in India. In both regions, substantial monetary or in-kind transfers occur with marriage: bride price across Sub-Saharan Africa and dowry in India. In a simple equilibrium model of the marriage market in which parents choose when their children marry, income shocks affect the age of marriage because marriage payments are a source of consumption smoothing, particularly for a woman's family. As predicted by our model, we show that droughts, which reduce annual crop yields by 10 to 15% and aggregate income by 4 to 5%, have opposite effects on the marriage behavior of a sample of 400,000 women in the two regions: in Sub-Saharan Africa they increase the annual hazard into child marriage by 3%, while in India droughts reduce such a hazard by 4%. Changes in the age of marriage due to droughts are associated with changes in fertility, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, and with declines in observed marriage payments. Our results indicate that the age of marriage responds to short-term changes in aggregate economic conditions and that marriage payments determine the sign of this response. This suggests that, in order to design successful policies to combat child marriage and improve investments in daughters' human capital, it is crucial to understand the economic role of marriage market institutions.