What about that dowry inflation in South Asia?

In a National Bureau of Economic Research paper Raj Arunachalam and Trevon Logan say it's a myth and theoretical papers have been trying to explain something for which there is no systematic evidence:

Using large-sample retrospective survey data from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal, we assess the empirical evidence for dowry inflation. We find no evidence that real dowry amounts have systematically increased over time in South Asia.

The same question could be asked about dowries in the UAE. The claim is that they are 'spiraling out of control' (as it's often put), but is that really true?

Here is an ungated version of the paper.

Thanks to Chris Blattman for the pointer.

Indian Marriage Market :: Freexhange/economist.com

Quote:

Given the growing scarcity of women, how can the parents of boys continue to demand such high fees? I would suspect that the practice will, in fact, abate eventually, but probably not soon enough to prevent millions more girls being aborted. The other interesting economic fact to emerge from the article is that it is actually rich families who are most likely to do this.... This makes sense; in a poor country, ultrasounds are a luxury.

There are some things that economists cannot explain.

In the UAE the tradition amongst nationals is that men pay the dowry. Families demand very high dowries, so high that there is a spinster problem - a high proportion of women who never marry. The men can take foreign brides, and many do. As they say, de gustabus non disputandum. But I'm still puzzled.

Emirati women want to choose husband as educated as themselves

Gulf News today:

Abu Dhabi: Sixty-three per cent of UAE national men favour traditional marriages, while 71 per cent of UAE national women prefer to choose their husbands themselves, according to a recent study conducted by university students on the issue of marriage.

The study was conducted by Salwa Fouad, Khowla Ahmad and Lamia Ahmad, communication and media sciences students at Zayed University, as part of their graduation project, reported Notes which is published today.
. . .
Students surveyed 200 Emiratis and visited the Abu Dhabi Courts to gather statistics and literature.

The study showed that about 70 per cent of UAE nationals get married for religious reasons. It also indicated that 63 per cent of Emirati women refuse to marry a man with a poorer education than them.

However, 74 per cent of UAE national men said that they would marry women of higher education standards. It also showed that "being religious" was the number one quality men and women look for in a spouse.

Eighty per cent of women and 76 per cent of men agreed that dowry is not an indication of the bride's position and value. This is particularly relevant considering the expensive wedding parties and dowries that are part of UAE national weddings.

Considering that "National females constituted 71.2 per cent of national higher education graduates in the academic year 2002-03 and 68.6 per cent in 2003-04" the reluctance of women to marry men with less education could explain many concerns in the UAE:

- spinsterhood,
- the size of dowries, that is brides prices (to offset lack of education)
- national men marrying nonnationals,
- small number of children per woman (small relative to public policy aims), and
- the "demographic imbalance" (the euphemism for the large proportion of the population which is non-national).

West Bank Weddings Losing Some of Their Bling :: WaPo

Quote:

BANI NAIM, West Bank -- Of the many troubles that the economic slide has brought to this town on the edge of the Judean Desert, Jihad Manassrah saw none more threatening than the growing number of single women walking in prim pairs through its narrow streets.

Marriage, once a jubilant expression of love and status here, had become a tradition many could no longer afford.

So last month, Manassrah, the imam of a local mosque, presented a novel social contract to several hundred men gathered for a rare public forum. The agreement put a cap on the cost of weddings and bridal dowries that had swelled enormously in this once-prosperous town of merchants, day laborers and civil servants, who like many in the West Bank are now adapting to hard times.

The declining marriage rate here is one example of social change in the midst of what the World Bank calls "an unprecedented economic recession" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Political power, demographics, family structure and customs are being transformed by financial constraints in large and small ways that will likely outlast the crisis itself.
. . .
Across the West Bank and Gaza, young men are abandoning towns and villages to find work in Palestinian cities, leaving communities like this one with a high concentration of unmarried women. At the same time, more Palestinian women are seeking higher degrees and jobs of their own to help husbands make ends meet, a trend university registrars say has accelerated in the seven months in which Hamas has run the Palestinian Authority.

In Bani Naim, a town of 20,000 people that fills several narrow valleys east of Hebron, the exodus of young men began a few years ago, and town leaders say it has quickened this year. The trend was reflected in a summer wedding season that, by all accounts, was the most meager in memory.

Women here commonly marry between the ages of 19 and 22, but many have been staying single far longer.
. . .
In this town, where stone-block mansions overlook valleys of olive orchards, the average cost of a wedding had risen to $15,000 in the prosperous years between uprisings. But many of the newer homes remain half-built, evidence of a lifestyle that has become a thing of the past.

A Palestinian wedding is a lavish undertaking of parties, salon visits and a bridal dowry often used as a measure of status. A bride here had come to expect her groom to provide 300 grams of gold, bedroom furniture and a new wardrobe as her dowry, which families came to see as an insurance policy against divorce.
. . .
There is also the celebration at the signing of the wedding agreement, which calls for the slaughter of a prized lamb, and a half-dozen bridal trips to the salon before each wedding-related event. Custom also demands that the groom rent a large convoy of taxis to retrieve the bride on the wedding day, which culminates in a feast of more than a dozen slaughtered sheep and an expensive fireworks display.

The Young and the Fastest, Saudi Arabian Style

Young: "NAJRAN, 22 July 2005 — Hundreds in Najran witnessed a marriage ceremony of the youngest couple in the Kingdom, the Okaz newspaper reported. A marriage ceremony between a 13-year-old groom and a 10-year-old bride was solemnized in front of the couple’s relatives. The groom is studying first year in middle school. He married his cousin, who is studying in fifth grade. The groom called on all his friends at school to get married at the earliest."

Fastest: "The young man, wracked with doubt whether his proposal would be accepted by the would-be bride’s family, screwed up his courage and proposed. He was pleasantly surprised when the family accepted his proposal and asked him to marry her on the same day. Not one to let an opportunity slip away, the youth went to the hospital for the medical certificate and as he made his way home withdrew the SR3,000 dowry money. The whole process from the moment he proposed and to the couple’s honeymoon took 3 hours."

Symposium on spinsterhood :: 7DAYS

Dr Ahmed Al Kubaissy, a leading Islamic Scholar, yesterday called on lawmakers to allow national women to marry non-UAE nationals and halt a “daily” rise in the number of unmarried Emirati women.... Speaking at a Dubai “symposium on spinsterhood”, organised by the Juma Al Majid Centre for Culture and Heritage in collaboration with the UAE Marriage Fund, Al Kubaissy said that national women should be allowed to marry other Muslims and Arabs in order to combat a rise in the number of UAE national men marrying foreigners - or at least limit national men to marrying only national women. Elaph.com reported the symposium highlighting “an economic change in UAE society” as the the biggest factor behind this trend, including the increasing cost of dowries, luxury furniture and bridal gifts.

Long absence has consequences - Gulf News

The man told the court that he wanted to remarry his former wife if she approved. The man was told that he could remarry her upon a new proposal and new dowry. Sources at the Dubai court said the man has not shown up since then.

It appears no mutually beneficial price could be agreed upon.

It also appears the former wife wasted no time in excercising her rights to a Sharia-endorsed divorce once the husband's absence crossed the critical point. And she wasted no effort in finding him.

Nationals marrying nationals - LIBERTY
A North American Expat Lifestyle Magazine
Issue 03 March 2005

What reasons do National men cite for their disinterest in marrying the U.A.E. local women? Mostly economics. ... The common six figure dowry sum is agreed between the groom's family and the bride's parents and is paid to the bride herself. Honor and pride drive the amount higher and higher. Before the marriage has an honest chance at a happy start, the young groom is in debt and struggling to repay the wedding loan.

Another possible key to National men's interest in marrying foreign women could be the cost of divorce. To divorce his UAE national wife, he may pay as much as Dhs. 50,000 in deferred payments while a foreign wife can be divorced for as little as 2,000 and a plane ticket home.

As the saying goes in economics, exit costs are entry costs. Make it more costly to leave and men will be less likely to enter into a marriage, especially when alternatives exist.

A study conducted by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs surveying National men married to foreign women found that 66% of the husbands said they had chosen their wives to escape potential inteference by their in-laws.

Many National women fear they will never be married. Jokes about "the in-laws" are a universal shared by most cultures, so in-law trouble is not unique to the UAE. Is it a question of extremely severe in-law trouble in the UAE that explains the number of marriages of National men to foreign brides? Or is it easy access to foreign brides?

I don't know. But I bet that families would guarantee (if they could) that they would not interfere if in return it would gain their daughters a good marriage partner. This is yet another example of time inconsistency and the value of commitment (in this case, not to interfere).

Men taking foreign brides is viewed as a national problem. (In a country where Nationals are 80% of the population, I can understand the anxiety.) Among the actions taken by the government:

In 1998, a UAE law was passed to restrict dowries to less than Dhs 10,000. Families may be fined up to US$136,000 if they stage a wedding celebration considered too elaborate.

Unlike the case of ex post in-law interference - where it is not possible to commit not to interfere - the in-laws are capable of reducing their dowry demand to a point that their daughters do marry. Evidently, the government believes that the families of daughters tend to charge too much - and that there are not enough marriages between National men and women.

Ordinary supply and demand analysis would tell us if you put a ceiling on the bride price this reduces the quantity of brides supplied and thereby reduces the number of marriages. Yes, the number of men who wish to marry would increase, but, because the number of available brides falls, the number of marriages fall.

On this analysis the policy of penalizing lavish weddings and large dowries will produce a result the opposite of what is intended.

Right? Tell me.