Journal of Development Economics · 2025 · [{"name": "Priyama Majumdar", "affiliation": ["University of Warwick"]}]
中文摘要
尽管历经数十年改革，早婚与嫁妆习俗在印度农村地区依然普遍存在。本文考察女性政治代表权是否会改变这些做法。我构建了一个模型：家庭在面临未婚社会惩罚的情况下选择女儿的婚期与嫁妆。女性领导人通过扩大女性的经济机会，提高了女儿的价值，并推迟了婚姻。当社会惩罚较高时，婚姻推迟会提高嫁妆。我利用印度1992年宪法修正案带来的外生变异对此进行检验，该修正案将三分之一的村议会主席（pradhan）席位保留给女性。来自一项具有代表性的农村调查的数据表明，女性村议会主席使结婚时间推迟1.22年，并使嫁妆增加68%。女性劳动力参与率上升29%在一定程度上解释了这种推迟。嫁妆的增加集中在父权制州，在这些州，未婚所受的社会惩罚最为严厉。研究结果凸显了在具有约束力的社会制约下，政治赋权改变婚姻规范的潜力及其局限。
Abstract
Despite decades of reform, early marriage and dowry remain pervasive in rural India. I examine whether women's political representation shifts these practices. I develop a model in which households choose daughters' marriage timing and dowry, facing social penalties for non-marriage. Female leaders, by expanding women's economic opportunities, increase the value of daughters and delay marriage. When social penalties are high, delays raise dowry. I test this using exogenous variation from India's 1992 constitutional amendment, which reserved one-third of village council (pradhan) seats for women. Data from a representative rural survey shows that female pradhans delay marriage by 1.22 years and increase dowry by 68%. A 29% rise in female labor force participation partly explains the delay. Dowry increases are concentrated in patriarchal states, where penalties for non-marriage are most severe. The findings highlight both the potential and the limits of political empowerment in transforming marital norms under binding social constraints.