The Marriage Squeeze Interpretation of Dowry Inflation: A Comment

Abstract

In a recent paper, Rao (1993) advanced a marriage squeeze explanation to the secular rise in real dowries, so-called dowry inflation, witnessed in India. Arguing that the relevant ages with respect to marriage are 10–19 for women and 20–29 for men, Rao found that the ratio of women to men in those age groups had increased over time. Moreover, this sex ratio was found to have a positive and significant impact on dowry when one controls for differences in traits of brides and grooms. The empirical results presented here suggest that Rao’s findings are not robust. Using the same data, I fail to replicate his main result, that is, that the sex ratio (women 10–19/men 20–29) has a positive impact on dowries. Moreover, Rao’s specification—regressing dowries on differences in spouses’ traits (bride’s minus groom’s)—imposes the restriction that attributes influence dowries in a symmetrical fashion, ignoring compelling evidence against that assumption. I find that regressing dowry on individual traits instead of differences improves the model fit considerably.