Assortative matching in Africa: Evidence from rural Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire, and Malawi

Claire Boxho,Aletheia Donald,Markus Goldstein,Joao Montalvao,Léa Rouanet

doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2019.108924

Abstract

We document novel evidence of positive assortative matching in African marriage markets along cognitive and socio-emotional skills, time and risk preferences, and education, using data from rural Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire, and Malawi.

Highlights

Marital sorting based on human capital has important implications for the creation, distribution, and inter‐generational transmission of welfare
This is despite the growing literature emphasizing the economic importance of multiple human capital dimensions in both rich and poor contexts [e.g. Heckman et al 2006, Liu 2013, Abay et al 2017], as well as recent work on matching and marriage markets showing that sorting is multidimensional [e.g. Dupuy and Galichon 2014, Chiappori et al 2018]
We present novel evidence of positive assortative matching along cognitive and socio‐emotional skills, time and risk preferences, and education using unique data from rural Mozambique, Côte d’Ivoire, and Malawi

Summary

Introduction

Marital sorting based on human capital has important implications for the creation, distribution, and inter‐generational transmission of welfare. While the literature finds evidence of this assortative matching – the tendency of men and women who marry to have similar human capital levels – most of this research has been conducted in rich country settings and has largely focused on sorting along educational attainment [e.g. Greenwood et al 2014]. This is despite the growing literature emphasizing the economic importance of multiple human capital dimensions in both rich and poor contexts [e.g. Heckman et al 2006, Liu 2013, Abay et al 2017], as well as recent work on matching and marriage markets showing that sorting is multidimensional [e.g. Dupuy and Galichon 2014, Chiappori et al 2018]. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to provide systematic evidence of assortative matching on multiple human capital dimensions in Africa

Methods

Results

Conclusion