The greatest obstacle to help you performing empirical training toward dowry is the run out of otherwise inadequacy of information

2.dos Issues with current research

Because the dowry is lawfully blocked for the India and you may Bangladesh, anybody always hesitate to inform you real dowry numbers. The high quality question on the dowry regarding the Indian dataset asks on the community-founded dowry. Such as, the India People Development Survey requires “Fundamentally in the region having children instance your own personal, do you know the style of items that are offered because the gift ideas in the course of the new daughter’s marriage?” A residential area-dependent dowry is not necessarily the same as a single dowry, that is reduced by bride’s moms and dads at the time of matrimony. Alternatively, issue from dowry allows only a binary address, we.e., even though an optimistic level of dowry are repaid (e.g., Survey on the Position of females and you can Fertility in India and you can Pakistan). A digital respond to, definitely, doesn’t bring much considerably more details. Typical away from if or not an optimistic dowry number is provided corresponds so you’re able to, and that’s largely informed me by, ethnic, spiritual, and you can status backgrounds from inside the South China.

While the dowry isn’t legally prohibited when you look at the Pakistan, the total amount physically paid down by female https://brightwomen.net/tr/porto-riko-kadinlar/ respondent’s moms and dads can be expected rather than reservation during the a great Pakistani dataset including the Pakistan Rural Household Questionnaire. Regardless if Pakistani interviewees might not intentionally conceal true details about dowry techniques, new survey get however have remember problems due to the fact respondents must bear in mind the latest dowry amount paid off by the their mothers several years ago. Shape 1a plots the newest predicted number of actual dowry opinions counted inside the Pakistani Rupees from inside the 2004 on to matrimony year using investigation off the brand new Pakistan Rural Home Questionnaire. As the opinion is the fact genuine dowry quantity are broadening, or perhaps showcase a non-declining pattern, the new shape means the general interest out of remember errors. To phrase it differently, the latest stretched the brand new pit amongst the interviewees’ wedding additionally the keep in mind day, a lot more likely they are so you can overestimate new dowry count.

Relationship ranging from women’s ounts. The fresh range shows the new predicted real level of dowry regressed with the women’s relationships season. This new shady city suggests 95% confidence interval of the predicted quantity of dowry. The knowledge sourced elements of (a) and you can (b) is actually Pakistan Rural Household Questionnaire 2004, and rural family questionnaire conducted by journalist into the 2013, respectively

3 Studies

Toward better of our very own studies, study amassed in this analysis will be basic to take on clearly an over-all habit of overestimate an expense reduced a long time back. Much like the functions off prior to now amassed data, ours also are retrospective; not, predicated on this interest, we including accompanied particular efforts to reduce questionnaire remember mistakes. For example, i requested the degree of one another area-built dowry (non-retrospective) and personal dowry amount repaid during the time of brand new respondent’s relationship (retrospective). As the Pakistani dowry consists of gold/jewelry, dresses, furniture, cooking utensils, etc, i queried dowry wide variety because of the goods. Whenever we thought a good respondent’s overestimation of the dowry amount, especially in the case off a married relationship one to occurred a good few years in the past, since the dowry is actually demonstrated, we can and you may did glance at such quantity which have people who attended the latest ceremony. Consequently, all of our studies into the predicted real quantities of dowry (Fig. 1b) do not inform you one decreasing trend, alternatively which have those individuals stated within the Fig. 1a.

step three.step one Survey

When conducting our survey between , we intended to capture the heterogeneous aspects of the Punjab province in Pakistan. We divided Punjab (36 districts) into five regions: Pothohar (or North), Central, East, West, and South Punjab. Climate, culture (including marriage/inheritance practices), and socioeconomic conditions differ across regions but are similar within each region. We randomly selected one district from each region, namely, Rawalpindi, Mandi Bahauddin, Narowal, Muzaffargarh, and Bahawalnagar (Fig. 2). We used the district census for 1998–1999, the latest census available in Pakistan as of 2013, to randomly select six villages in rural areas in each of the five districts. We restricted sampling villages to those with a population of at least 1000 at the time of the census. In each village, we selected 22 households, following a stratified random sampling methodology. First, with assistance from the village chief, we made a list of households in the village and categorized them into a stratum. The strata are kammees Footnote 10 (i.e., traditional service or lower caste, with annual income ? PKR 200,000, > PKR 200,000) and zamindars (i.e., landowning farmers with land < 5,>12.5 acres). Eligible households in our survey are defined as those with an economically active husband and wife aged 15–65. Second, we performed stratified random sampling so that the share of each stratum in our sample corresponds to the share of each stratum of the village population (= households).