The most significant test to conducting empirical degree to the dowry is the use up all your or inadequacy of information

2.dos Complications with current research

Since the dowry try lawfully banned inside India and you may Bangladesh, somebody always hesitate to show specific dowry number. The high quality question into dowry about Indian dataset requires about community-created dowry. For example, the newest Asia People Development Questionnaire asks “Generally in the area to own children such as your very own, what are the type of issues that are offered since gifts during the time of the brand new daughter’s wedding?” A community-mainly based dowry is not necessarily the just like an individual dowry, that is paid off by the bride’s mothers in the course of relationship. Rather, issue out of dowry allows only a digital answer, we.age., no matter if an optimistic level of dowry was paid back (age.grams., Questionnaire towards the Condition of women and you may Virility in Asia and Pakistan). A digital address, obviously, will not promote far additional info. The norm away from whether an optimistic dowry amount exists matches so you’re able to, which is mainly explained from the, cultural, spiritual, and caste experiences in Southern China.

Because dowry isn’t legally blocked when you look at the Pakistan, the amount directly reduced by feminine respondent’s parents are https://internationalwomen.net/da/blog/russiske-kvinder-datingsider/ expected without booking for the a good Pakistani dataset including the Pakistan Outlying House Survey. Regardless if Pakistani interviewees may not intentionally conceal real details about dowry strategies, the new survey get still have recall errors just like the respondents must keep in mind the dowry count repaid because of the their moms and dads previously. Figure 1a plots the fresh new forecast quantity of real dowry opinions mentioned inside the Pakistani Rupees when you look at the 2004 to matrimony season using data away from new Pakistan Outlying Domestic Questionnaire. Since the opinion is that real dowry numbers try expanding, or at least display a low-declining development, the newest figure suggests the entire interest regarding recall mistakes. To put it differently, the latest stretched the fresh gap amongst the interviewees’ relationships additionally the recall big date, the much more likely he could be to help you overestimate this new dowry number.

Matchmaking between women’s ounts. The line reveals this new predict actual quantity of dowry regressed to the women’s marriage year. The latest shaded city reveals 95% believe period of your own forecast amount of dowry. The knowledge resources of (a) and you may (b) try Pakistan Rural House Questionnaire 2004, therefore the rural house questionnaire conducted by publisher when you look at the 2013, respectively

step three Analysis

On the better of all of our degree, analysis built-up inside study could be the very first to look at explicitly a standard habit of overestimate a price paid back extended ago. Much like the characteristics of in past times collected investigation, ours are also retrospective; yet not, based on it interest, we such as used certain work to reduce survey bear in mind problems. For example, we wanted the degree of each other society-based dowry (non-retrospective) and personal dowry matter repaid at the time of the newest respondent’s marriage (retrospective). Once the Pakistani dowry consists of gold/jewelry, outfits, chairs, kitchenware, and the like, we queried dowry wide variety because of the goods. When we sensed a good respondent’s overestimation of the dowry amount, especially in the actual situation out-of a wedding one happened good few years in the past, as the dowry is shown, we could and did examine these types of number having individuals who went to the ceremony. Therefore, all of our investigation toward predict real amounts of dowry (Fig. 1b) do not tell you people decreasing development, however which have those people claimed during the Fig. 1a.

step three.step 1 Questionnaire

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 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).