Daughters, Dowries, Deliveries: The Effect of Marital Payments on Fertility Choices in IndiaISER Internal Seminars

This study estimates the effect of dowries on fertility in India. The future dowry associated with the birth of each child introduces a gender-specific cost to its parents. This leads families with more daughters to have higher fertility. For identification, the paper exploits a revision in anti-dowry law in combination with pre-treatment heterogeneity across the gender of the first child, maternal ethnicity and birth cohort. The resulting decrease in expected dowries attenuates the previously observed positive correlation between daughters and their parents’ birth rates. The effect is strongest for low birth orders and for more educated women.

Presented by:

Marco Alfano (UCL)

Date & time:

February 19, 2014 1:00 pm


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