Daughters, dowries, deliveries: the effect of marital payments on fertility choices in India
Daughters, dowries, deliveries: the effect of marital payments on fertility choices in India
This paper investigates the effect of the differential pecuniary costs of sons and daughters on fertility decisions. The focus is on dowries in India, which increase the economic returns to sons and decrease the returns to daughters. The paper exploits an exogenous shift in the cost of girls relative to boys arising from a revision in anti-dowry law, which is shown to have decreased dowry transfers markedly. The reform is found to have attenuated the widely documented positive association between daughters and their parents' fertility. The effect is particularly pronounced for more autonomous women and for individuals living in areas characterised by strong preferences for sons.
89-104
Alfano, Marco
0df2fd10-8c2e-444f-9ec2-5c5e74c1a99e
23 December 2016
Alfano, Marco
0df2fd10-8c2e-444f-9ec2-5c5e74c1a99e
Alfano, Marco
(2016)
Daughters, dowries, deliveries: the effect of marital payments on fertility choices in India.
Journal of Development Economics, 125, .
(doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.11.004).
Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of the differential pecuniary costs of sons and daughters on fertility decisions. The focus is on dowries in India, which increase the economic returns to sons and decrease the returns to daughters. The paper exploits an exogenous shift in the cost of girls relative to boys arising from a revision in anti-dowry law, which is shown to have decreased dowry transfers markedly. The reform is found to have attenuated the widely documented positive association between daughters and their parents' fertility. The effect is particularly pronounced for more autonomous women and for individuals living in areas characterised by strong preferences for sons.
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Accepted/In Press date: 20 November 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 26 November 2016
Published date: 23 December 2016
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Local EPrints ID: 506990
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/506990
ISSN: 0304-3878
PURE UUID: be7a14c8-b96d-497d-b6ab-55794d492ace
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Date deposited: 25 Nov 2025 17:37
Last modified: 26 Nov 2025 03:13
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Author:
Marco Alfano
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