Why The Marriage Squeeze Cannot Cause Dowry Inflation

Abstract

It has been argued that rising dowry payments are caused by population growth. According to that explanation, termed the squeeze, a population increase leads to an excess supply of brides since men marry younger women. As a result, dowry payments rise in order to clear the marriage market. The explanation is essentially static; unmarried brides do not re-enter the marriage market. This paper demonstrates that the marriage squeeze argument cannot explain dowry inflation in a proper dynamic framework. In fact, when women, who do not find matches at the desirable marrying age, re-enter the marriage market as older brides, (as is the case in areas undergoing dowry inflation), the marriage squeeze argument is shown to imply dowry deflation.