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Consumption Smoothing, Migration, and Marriage: Evidence from Rural India

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  • Rosenzweig, Mark R
  • Stark, Oded

Abstract

A significant proportion of migration in low-income countries, particularly in rural areas, is composed of moves by women for the purpose of marriage. The authors seek to explain these mobility patterns based on a framework in which the marriage of daughters to locationally distant, dispersed yet kinship-related households is a manifestation of implicit interhousehold contractual arrangements aimed at mitigating income risks and facilitating consumption smoothing in an environment characterized by information costs and spatially covariant risks. Analyses of longitudinal data on consumption patterns, income, and marital arrangements in South Indian households lend support to the theory. Copyright 1989 by University of Chicago Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosenzweig, Mark R & Stark, Oded, 1989. "Consumption Smoothing, Migration, and Marriage: Evidence from Rural India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 905-926, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:97:y:1989:i:4:p:905-26
    DOI: 10.1086/261633
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    1. Caldwell, John C & Reddy, P H & Caldwell, Pat, 1986. "Periodic High Risk as a Cause of Fertility Decline in a Changing Rural Environment: Survival Strategies in the 1980-1983 South Indian Drought," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(4), pages 677-701, July.
    2. Keeley, Michael C, 1977. "The Economics of Family Formation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 15(2), pages 238-250, April.
    3. Smith, Richard J & Blundell, Richard W, 1986. "An Exogeneity Test for a Simultaneous Equation Tobit Model with an Application to Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 679-685, May.
    4. Lucas, Robert E B & Stark, Oded, 1985. "Motivations to Remit: Evidence from Botswana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 901-918, October.
    5. Becker, Gary S, 1973. "A Theory of Marriage: Part I," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 813-846, July-Aug..
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