info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Age at marriage, social norms, and female education in Nepal
Fecha
2020-09-06Registro en:
Jafarey, Saqib; Mainali, Ram; Montes Rojas, Gabriel Victorio; Age at marriage, social norms, and female education in Nepal; Blackwell Publishing; Review of Development Economics; 24; 3; 6-9-2020; 878-909
1363-6669
1467-9361
CONICET Digital
CONICET
Autor
Jafarey, Saqib
Mainali, Ram
Montes Rojas, Gabriel Victorio
Resumen
We study the impact of age at marriage on female education. We hypothesize that in cultures where women marry young, parents discount the pecuniary benefits of educating girls; the earlier the anticipated age at marriage the greater this discount. We empirically test this effect using household data from Nepal. We control for potential endogeneity of age at marriage by exploiting variations in cultural norms regarding dowry and differences in the average age of female marriage among ethnicities and regions as instrumental variables. The econometric results support the hypothesis that female education is negatively affected by cultural norms that favor early marriage.