Marriage Markets (India)

Son preference has created an imbalance in the marriage market in India. A large number of men engage in a futile search for brides. A cross-sectional analysis based on the Indian census of 1931 finds a strong regional effect in gender bias and marriage rate for men. This can be interpreted as the effect of cultural norms. The north has son preference and also a high proportion of single males. Bringing caste into the story adds a new dimension and shows the upper castes have a strong gender bias and also a higher share of never-married men. (p. 20)

The source is an article in The Economic History Review (2014) by B. Gupta.
It seems that hypergamy does not help upper caste men, at least in this context. 

Children, Marriage, and Divorce

Children can be considered as a marriage-specific investment that increases the value of the marriage, making a divorce more costly. We exploit the richness of pre- and post-marital information from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 79, for the United States, to investigate the relation between fertility and marriage instability. In our model of marriage breakdown, we use the number of siblings of the respondent and, alternatively, multiple births, to instrument the number of children conceived during first marriage. Our results indicate that the presence of children significantly reduces the probability of marital disruption. In addition, the younger the children, the greater the deterrent effect. In contrast, we conclude that children conceived before first marriage increase the risk of marital disruption. Finally, the higher the parents' level of education, the larger the positive effect of fertility on marital stability.

That is from this paper by Héctor Bellido, Jose Alberto Molina, Anne Solaz, & Elena G.F. Stancanelli. 

The authors add

Over the last five decades, divorce in the United States has undergone dramatic changes. The divorce rate increased dramatically from the early 1960s to the early 1980s, and then began a steady decline (see figure 1). 

. . . unmarried women are spectacularly loyal to the Democrats.

Yet unmarried women are spectacularly loyal to the Democrats.

And more from this The Economist article 

. . . unmarried women are one of America’s fastest-growing groups, leaping from 45m in 2000 to around 53m today—making them, in theory, a larger block of eligible voters than blacks and Hispanics put together (though in reality the groups overlap).

And in a related topic from an article in Demography (October 2013)

Results show that increases in the proportion of women unmarried by age 40 contributed most to the increase in childlessness in the late twentieth century, although these increases were offset somewhat by increased childbearing among unmarried women. The rising proportion of women with a college degree also explained a substantial amount of the increase in childless women.

The article is titled "Marriage (Still) Matters: The Contribution of Demographic Change to Trends in Childlessness in the United States," and it is by Sarah R. Hayford. 

Some illustrative graphs are here. 

Same-Sex Marriage and a Marriage Premium

We examine the relationship between legalized same-sex marriage and the wage differential between homosexual and heterosexual men. Theory suggests that higher wages observed for heterosexual married men may or may not be productivity-driven. Using 1990 U.S. Census data, we confirm that homosexual men earned lower wages than comparable heterosexual men primarily due to the marriage premium. Adding 2011 ACS data, we find that same-sex marriage legalization in several states is associated with significant increases in the wages of gay males compared to heterosexual males. We detect little evidence of productivity-related explanations, suggesting that employer discrimination may be the primary cause of the marriage premium.

That is form this paper by Ian Burn & Osborne Jackson.

Cohabitation?

From a paper by Anna Baranowska-Rataj

Most European countries have seen a retreat from marriage, which is increasingly preceded or replaced by cohabitation. A question that arises in light of this trend is how the diffusion of non-marital cohabitation may affect the quality of family relations. This article investigates how cohabitation among young people affects their level of satisfaction with their relationship with their parents. We analyse data from the recently released Generation and Gender Survey for Poland, a country with a limited degree of social acceptance of cohabitation, a high degree of attachment to the institution of marriage, and a familialistic culture. Since young adults who choose to cohabit are a rather specific group, we use statistical methods that allow us to control for both the observed and the unobserved characteristics of cohabiters. We find that young people who cohabited in their first union rated their level of satisfaction with their parental relationship lower than their peers who were married. Thus, at least in the context of a country where informal partnerships are not yet fully socially accepted or institutionally supported, the role of cohabitation in intergenerational relations may not be neutral.

The University as a Marriage Market (Chile)

We find that being admitted to a higher ranked university has substantial returns in terms of partner quality for women, while estimates for men are about half the size and not significantly different from zero.

The paper, by Katja Kaufmann, Matthias Messner, & Alex Solis, is here.

From the conclusions:

In terms of mechanisms we show that, while part of our results might be explained by the direct effect of universities acting as meeting places, this is unlikely to be the only channel. In particular, less than a quarter of couples could have met by attending the same university. Instead other channels such as accessing a ”higher quality” social network of fellow students from university upon admission to a higher ranked university, getting into different types of jobs with ”higher quality” potential partners and becoming more attractive appear to be important as well.

Culture and Economics: Marriage Institutions and Siblings Competition

Wikimedia Commos. Author: Latrobebohs

Traditional institutions interact in interesting ways with social and economic change. This article studies how traditional marriage practices induce trade-offs among sisters, tradeoffs most intense at intermediate levels of female schooling. Across four large South Asian countries, parents rush a daughter’s marriage search if she has younger sisters and delay her marriage search if she has older sisters, at the expense of spousal quality. These effects are especially strong in settings where grooms are scarce, search frictions are large, and arranged marriage is common. Because girls leave school when they marry and depend on their husbands for economic support in adulthood, the effects have long-term consequences. In Nepal, where data on adult women are available, younger sisters cause earlier school-leaving, lower educational attainment and adult literacy, lower spousal educational attainment and spousal occupational status, and marginally lower adult household economic status. Sibling rivalry over leaving the nest has effects that last long after all siblings have left it.

From a paper by Tom S. Vogl.  

Internet and marriage markets

The Internet has the potential to reduce search frictions by allowing individuals to identify faster a larger set of available options that conform to their preferences. One market that stands to benefit from this process is that of marriage. This paper empirically examines the implications of Internet diffusion in the United States since the 1990s on one aspect of this market: marriage rates. Exploring sharp temporal and geographic variation in the pattern of consumer broadband adoption, I find that the latter has significantly contributed to increased marriages rates among 21-30 year olds. A number of tests suggest that this relationship is causal and that it varies across demographic groups potentially facing thinner marriage markets. I also provide some suggestive evidence that Internet has likely crowded out other traditional meeting venues, such as through family and friends. Source. See a related paper on the way people meet their partners nowadays.

Cross-border Marriages (HK - China)

We study the rise in marriages between residents of HK and China following the handover of HK to China in 1997. Cross-boundary marriages accounted for almost half the marriages registered in HK in 2006. Because of large differences in male income between China and HK, marriages of HK men with Mainland women outnumbered those of HK women with mainland men sevenfold. Following the handover, HK women had lower marriage, higher divorce and higher emigration rates. These outcomes are predicted by our matching model and contradict the hypothesis that cross-boundary marriages were driven by rising education of HK women.

Source: Weiss, Yi, & Zhang (March 2013).
HT: Zheng Fang.

Marriage markets in rural Africa

In rural Tanzania, men living in villages where inheritance from late husband to widow is allowed, are more likely to marry. The paper (highly technical) is here. 

HT: Mark Lee. 

Cohabitation

The most relevant result is the association between cohabitation before marriage and the hazard of divorce. Living together before marriage shortens the duration of first marriage but increases the second one.

That is from a new working paper by Lavinia Parisi, "The Determinants of First and Second Marital Dissolution. Evidence from Britain" (July 2012).

Marriage, divorce, and risk sharing

In this paper, we explore the extent to which marriages influence inter-region risk sharing. We find that US states, where the married population represents a higher fraction of the total population, manage to share a larger fraction of their idiosyncratic risks. We draw two broad conclusions from our results: First, even in the US, where highly developed financial markets should be capable of providing substantial risk sharing, informal insurance mechanisms, such as marriages, still play a role. And second, we find that marriages do not only improve risk sharing at the individual level and within states, but also result in a higher degree of risk sharing across states. That is, marriages also help to smooth the impact of state-specific shocks which cannot be smoothed within states.

We also find some evidence that the impact of marriage on risk sharing is quantitatively more important in periods of economic downturns . . .

That is from the paper "Marriage, Divorce and Interstate Risk Sharing" by Halla and Scharler (Scandinavian Journal of Economics, March 2012), see a draft here (October 2008). Regarding the introduction of unilateral divorce legislation, the authors claim: ". . . unilateral divorce has reduced the risk sharing enhancing effect of marriage" (p.16).

Marriage and criminal propensity

Several previous studies have argued that marriage leads to a decline in criminal propensity. Most of these studies have focused on men and have given little attention to the characteristics of their partner and events related to changes in offending. In this article, we use Norwegian registry data to study changes in the criminal propensity for all persons who married between 1995 and 2001 (117,882 women and 120,912 men). We link data on individuals to data on their marital partners and obtain information on partners’ criminal histories. We find that the changes in offending rates related to marriage are anticipatory and strongest for men. The changes in offending vary substantially by partner’s criminal history.

Chart form the paper:

The authors conclude:

. . . [M]arriage is often preceded by lower criminal activity, for both men and women. The rebound after marriage is greater for women, leaving serious doubts over whether marriage represents a lasting influence on criminal activity in women.

. . . The analyses show assortative mating patterns, where those who marry persons with a criminal history are at greater risk of committing crimes themselves.

That is from the new paper "Crime and the transition to marriage: The roles of gender and partner’s criminal involvement" by Monsbakken, Hovde Lyngstad, and Skardhamar (2012)." This paper brings new insights. Consider what the literature says about this issue. See, for example, this paper by Sampson, Laub, and Wimer (2006), that claims " . . . being married is associated with an average reduction of approximately 35 percent in the odds of crime compared to nonmarried states for the same man." One of the classic papers on the effect of marriage on men's behavior is Akerlof's "Man without children" (2001) [alas I did not find a full online version]. His argument is that marriage "domesticates" men and makes them less violent. 

HT: Clarence Nkengne Tsimpo.

Does marriage decision respond to economic incentives?

This is from the paper On the Timing of Marriage, Cattle, and Shocks [based on research in rural Zimbabwe], published in the latest issue of Economic Development and Cultural Change:

This paper focuses on the timing of marriage in rural areas in Zimbabwe and provides evidence suggesting that the timing of marriage responds to economic circumstances. As the transfer of bride wealth from (the family of) the groom to the family of the bride upon a daughter’s marriage presents an opportunity to acquire cattle, an unmarried daughter might be considered part of a household’s asset portfolio. In this view an unmarried daughter could be considered an asset that can be cashed in during times of adversity. The central question we address is whether marriage (through bride wealth payments) serves as an alternative financial insurance institution. 

The estimation results show that the amount of rainfall has a positive but insignificant effect on the marriage rate. This is likely a marriage market effect due to the fact that after a period of low rainfall the supply of men is lower as few households are able to afford bride wealth. The results also indicate that the marriage rate for daughters from poor households is higher. In particular, after a negative shock to livestock wealth the marriage rate of daughters increases. The marriage rate for the oldest daughter in the household is also found to be higher, but its coefficient is not significant. These empirical results are consistent with the hypothesis that households use unmarried daughters as assets that can be cashed in during times of adversity. 

Of course, there are many other implicit insurance mechanisms that house- holds use to deal with adverse shocks. However, from the empirical results that households use unmarried daughters to deal with adverse idiosyncratic shocks, one concludes that these other insurance mechanisms are insufficient to deal with all these shocks. 

We considered the amount of bride wealth as well. Our estimation results provide additional evidence that the timing of marriage is used to avoid getting stuck in poverty. In particular, less wealthy households receive larger initial bride wealth payments when a daughter gets married. The accumulated amount of bride wealth they receive in the first years of marriage is relatively low so that the relatively high initial payment goes at the expense of subsequent payments. In other words, initial poverty can be avoided but only at the expense of lower payments in the subsequent years.

Becker's A Theory of Marriage (1974) is the classic article on the economics of marriage in the  literature.  

The Consequences of Early Marriage in the Developing World

From the paper: Jensen, Robert and Rebecca Thornton “The Consequences of Early Marriage in the Developing World.” Oxfam Journal of Gender and Development. (June) 2003. 

Many women in the developing world are subject to marriage at an early age. Most such women have little choice in the age at which they marry, or whom they marry. In this article, we examine patterns and trends of early marriage in the developing world. The incidence varies widely, from a high of 70percent in south Asia to a low of 30 percent in South East Asia. Women who marry young tend to have less education and begin child rearing earlier, and have less decision-making power in the household. They are also more likely to experience domestic violence.