IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6862.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Education and Freedom of Choice: Evidence from Arranged Marriages in Vietnam

Author

Listed:
  • Emran, M. Shahe

    (Columbia University)

  • Maret-Rakotondrazaka, Fenohasina

    (George Washington University)

  • Smith, Stephen C.

    (George Washington University)

Abstract

Using household data from Vietnam, we provide evidence on the effects of education on freedom of spouse choice. We use war disruptions and spatial indicators of schooling supply as instruments. The point estimates indicate that a year of additional schooling reduces the probability of an arranged marriage by about 14 percentage points for an individual with eight years of schooling. We also estimate bounds on the effect of education on arranged marriage when exclusion restrictions are violated locally (the lower bound is six to seven percentage points). The impact of education is strong for women, but significantly weaker for men.

Suggested Citation

  • Emran, M. Shahe & Maret-Rakotondrazaka, Fenohasina & Smith, Stephen C., 2012. "Education and Freedom of Choice: Evidence from Arranged Marriages in Vietnam," IZA Discussion Papers 6862, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6862
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp6862.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 69-85, Fall.
    2. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    3. Durlauf, Steven N. & Johnson, Paul A. & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2005. "Growth Econometrics," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.),Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 555-677, Elsevier.
    4. George Psacharopoulos & Harry Anthony Patrinos, 2004. "Returns to investment in education: a further update," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 111-134.
    5. James J. Heckman & Xuesong Li, 2003. "Selection Bias, Comparative Advantage and Heterogeneous Returns to Education," NBER Working Papers 9877, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Indraneel Dasgupta, & Pushkar Maitra, & Diganta Mukherjee, 2006. "'Arranged' Marriage, Co-Residence and Female Schooling: a Model with Evidence from India," Discussion Papers 06/03, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    7. Glewwe, Paul, 1996. "The relevance of standard estimates of rates of return to schooling for education policy: A critical assessment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 267-290, December.
    8. Jeanne Lafortune, 2013. "Making Yourself Attractive: Pre-marital Investments and the Returns to Education in the Marriage Market," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 151-178, April.
    9. Heckman, James & Li, Xuesong, 2003. "Selection bias, comparative advantage and heterogeneous returns to education: Evidence from China in 2000," Working Paper Series 2003:17, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    10. Tine De Moor & Jan Luiten Van Zanden, 2010. "Girl power: the European marriage pattern and labour markets in the North Sea region in the late medieval and early modern period1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(1), pages 1-33, February.
    11. Haddad, Lawrence & Kanbur, Ravi, 1990. "How Serious Is the Neglect of Intra-Household Inequality?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(402), pages 866-881, September.
    12. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Schultz, T Paul, 1989. "Schooling, Information and Nonmarket Productivity: Contraceptive Use and Its Effectiveness," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(2), pages 457-477, May.
    13. Yang, Dennis Tao & An, Mark Yuying, 2002. "Human capital, entrepreneurship, and farm household earnings," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 65-88, June.
    14. Basu, Kaushik & Narayan, Ambar & Ravallion, Martin, 2001. "Is literacy shared within households? Theory and evidence for Bangladesh," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(6), pages 649-665, December.
    15. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    16. Leandro M. Magnusson, 2010. "Inference in limited dependent variable models robust to weak identification," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 13(3), pages 56-79, October.
    17. Alderman, Harold, et al, 1996. "The Returns to Endogenous Human Capital in Pakistan's Rural Wage Labour Market," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 58(1), pages 29-55, February.
    18. Paul M. Romer, 1994. "The Origins of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 3-22, Winter.
    19. Shelly Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak, 1996. "Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 139-158, Fall.
    20. Takashi Kurosaki & Humayun Khan, 2006. "Human Capital, Productivity, and Stratification in Rural Pakistan," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 116-134, February.
    21. Keith Finlay & Leandro M. Magnusson, 2009. "Implementing weak-instrument robust tests for a general class of instrumental-variables models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(3), pages 398-421, September.
    22. Kenkel, Donald S, 1991. "Health Behavior, Health Knowledge, and Schooling," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 287-305, April.
    23. Robert H. Haveman & Barbara L. Wolfe, 1984. "Schooling and Economic Well-Being: The Role of Nonmarket Effects," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 19(3), pages 377-407.
    24. North, Douglass C, 1994. "Economic Performance through Time," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 359-368, June.
    25. M. Merli, 2000. "Socioeconomic background and war mortality during Vietnam’s wars," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(1), pages 1-15, February.
    26. Lena Edlund & Nils-Petter Lagerlöf, 2006. "Individual versus Parental Consent in Marriage: Implications for Intra-Household Resource Allocation and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 304-307, May.
    27. Jejeebhoy, Shireen J., 1995. "Women's Education, Autonomy, and Reproductive Behaviour: Experience from Developing Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198290339.
    28. Behrman, Jere R. & Wolfe, Barbara L., 1987. "How does mother's schooling affect family health, nutrition, medical care usage, and household sanitation?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1-2), pages 185-204.
    29. Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), 2005. "Handbook of Economic Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    30. Lagerlöf, Nils-Petter & Edlund, Lena, 2006. "Individual vs. Parental Consent in Marriage: Implications for Intra-Household Resource Allocation and Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 5474, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    31. Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November.
    32. Richard Blundell & Lorraine Dearden & Barbara Sianesi, 2005. "Evaluating the effect of education on earnings: models, methods and results from the National Child Development Survey," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 168(3), pages 473-512, July.
    33. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Keueger, 1991. "Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 979-1014.
    34. Hansen, Lars Peter & Heaton, John & Yaron, Amir, 1996. "Finite-Sample Properties of Some Alternative GMM Estimators," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 14(3), pages 262-280, July.
    35. Joshua Angrist & Alan Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Working Papers 834, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    36. Romer, Paul M., 1990. "Human capital and growth: Theory and evidence," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 251-286, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The Relationship Between Education and Arranged Marriages
      by Ariel Goldring in Free Market Mojo on 2010-10-07 16:00:49
    2. Utbildning och tvångsäktenskap
      by Niclas Berggren in Nonicoclolasos on 2010-10-12 16:30:25

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anukriti, S & Dasgupta, Shatanjaya, 2017. "Marriage Markets in Developing Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 10556, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Willa Friedman & Michael Kremer & Edward Miguel & Rebecca Thornton, 2016. "Education as Liberation?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(329), pages 1-30, January.
    3. Boulier, Bryan & Emran, M. Shahe & Hoque, Nazmul, 2021. "Access to Credit, Education, and Women’s Say in the Household: Evidence from Bangladesh," MPRA Paper 109009, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Maffioli, Elisa M., 2021. "The political economy of health epidemics: Evidence from the Ebola outbreak," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    5. Ali,Rubaba & Barra,Alvaro Federico & Berg,Claudia N. & Damania,Richard & Nash,John D. & Russ,Jason Daniel, 2015. "Infrastructure in conflict-prone and fragile environments : evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7273, The World Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Serneels, Pieter & Beegle, Kathleen & Dillon, Andrew, 2017. "Do returns to education depend on how and whom you ask?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 5-19.
    2. Voxi Heinrich Amavilah & Antonio Rodríguez Andrés, 2024. "Knowledge Economy and the Economic Performance of African Countries: A Seemingly Unrelated and Recursive Approach," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(1), pages 110-143, March.
    3. Harry Patrinos & Chris Sakellariou, 2005. "Schooling and Labor Market Impacts of a Natural Policy Experiment," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 19(4), pages 705-719, December.
    4. Behrman, Jere R., 2010. "Investment in Education Inputs and Incentives," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4883-4975, Elsevier.
    5. Peet, Evan D. & Fink, Günther & Fawzi, Wafaie, 2015. "Returns to education in developing countries: Evidence from the living standards and measurement study surveys," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 69-90.
    6. Uwaifo, Ruth, 2006. "Africa's Education Enigma? The Nigerian story," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21254, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    7. Guilhem Bascle, 2008. "Controlling for endogeneity with instrumental variables in strategic management research," Post-Print hal-00576795, HAL.
    8. Monazza Aslam, 2006. "Rates of Return to Education by Gender in Pakistan," Economics Series Working Papers GPRG-WPS-064, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Karlis Vilerts & Olegs Krasnopjorovs & Edgars Brekis, 2015. "Does Education Affect Wages During and After Economic Crisis? Evidence from Latvia (2006–2012)," Working Papers 2015/03, Latvijas Banka.
    10. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2009. "How large are returns to schooling? Hint: Money isn't everything," NBER Working Papers 15339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Yasser Razak Hussain & Pranab Mukhopadhyay, 2023. "How Much do Education, Experience, and Social Networks Impact Earnings in India? A Panel Data Analysis Disaggregated by Class, Gender, Caste and Religion," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    12. Behrman, Jere R., 1996. "Measuring the effectiveness of schooling policies in developing countries: Revisiting issues of methodology," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 345-364, October.
    13. Ma. Laarni D. Revilla & Jonna P. Estudillo, 2022. "The impacts of secondary education reforms on schooling and income of women and men in the Philippines," Philippine Review of Economics, University of the Philippines School of Economics and Philippine Economic Society, vol. 59(1), pages 1-25, June.
    14. Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth, 2008. "Understanding Low Average Returns to Education in Africa: The Role of Heterogeneity across Education Levels and the Importance of Political and Economic Reforms," IZA Discussion Papers 3766, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Tenn, Steven & Herman, Douglas A. & Wendling, Brett, 2010. "The role of education in the production of health: An empirical analysis of smoking behavior," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 404-417, May.
    16. Sonia Bhalotra & Claudia Sanhueza, 2004. "Parametric and Semi-parametric Estimations of the Return to Schooling in South Africa," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 294, Econometric Society.
    17. Kuepie, Mathias & Nordman, Christophe J. & Roubaud, François, 2009. "Education and earnings in urban West Africa," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 491-515, September.
    18. Plamen Nikolov & Nusrat Jimi, 2018. "What factors drive individual misperceptions of the returns to schooling in Tanzania? Some lessons for education policy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(44), pages 4705-4723, September.
    19. Eric A. Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2008. "The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 607-668, September.
    20. Robert H. Haveman & Barbara L. Wolfe, 2002. "Social and nonmarket benefits from education in an advanced economy," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 47(Jun), pages 97-142.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Red River delta; Vietnam; development; freedom of choice; schooling; education; arranged marriage; labour markets; social interactions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6862. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.