The Effect of Skewed Sex Ratios on Marriage Markets in India

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: This paper will explore how the declining sex ratio in Haryana, a state in north India, has affected the local marriage market. The ratio of the number of women to men has been falling over time, due to the strong preference for sons and prevalence of sex-selective abortion in this region. Studies show that lower sex ratios lead to higher female bargaining power, but I empirically show that there has been no change in female bargaining power in the region surveyed. I argue that the relative shortage of women causes a squeeze in the marriage market, which has two potential consequences: (i) an increasing age difference between spouses and (ii) an increased geographical spread of the marriage market. I test these hypotheses using primary data collected from households in three districts in Haryana. I conclude that the declining sex ratio has no effect on spousal age gap, but does increase the distance traveled by wives for marriage. This could explain the unresponsiveness of female bargaining power to the sex ratio change, since the marriage market is simply expanding geographically to compensate for the shortage of women rather than by directly altering intra-household dynamics.

Type of resource	text
Date created	May 2010

Author	Forbes, Riah
Primary advisor	Kochar, Anjini
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Department of Economics

Subject	Stanford Department of Economics
Subject	marriage market
Subject	Haryana
Subject	sex ratio
Subject	bargaining power
Subject	India
Subject	assortative matching
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/kr093dj5151

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Preferred Citation: Forbes, Riah. (2010). The Effect of Skewed Sex Ratios on Marriage Markets in India. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/kr093dj5151

Stanford University, Department of Economics, Honors Theses

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