The greatest test to carrying out empirical training to the dowry ‘s the lack otherwise inadequacy of data

2.dos Complications with established study

As dowry was legitimately banned inside the India and you may Bangladesh, some one usually think twice to inform you precise dowry numbers. The high quality question toward dowry on the Indian dataset requires from the community-established dowry. Eg, the latest India Peoples Development Survey asks “Essentially in your community to possess a family such yours, what are the types of things that are offered because gift ideas during the new daughter’s marriage?” A residential area-based dowry isn’t the identical to an individual dowry, which is paid down by bride’s moms and dads at the time of relationship. Alternatively, practical question from dowry allows simply a digital answer, we.e., whether or not a positive number of dowry try paid down (elizabeth.g., Survey towards the Reputation of women and you may Fertility in Asia and you will Pakistan). A binary address, needless to say, doesn’t bring much info. Typical of whether or not a confident dowry number is provided corresponds in order to, and that is mainly told me of the, ethnic, religious, and you can status backgrounds for the Southern area Asia.

As the dowry is not legitimately blocked for the Pakistan, the quantity myself paid back of the women respondent’s moms https://worldbrides.org/mexico-brude/ and dads is going to be questioned as opposed to reservation when you look at the a beneficial Pakistani dataset including the Pakistan Outlying Family Survey. Regardless of if Pakistani interviewees might not intentionally conceal correct information regarding dowry means, the brand new survey can get nevertheless consist of keep in mind problems since the participants have to remember the brand new dowry number paid by their moms and dads previously. Figure 1a plots of land the forecast quantity of genuine dowry opinions measured into the Pakistani Rupees within the 2004 onto matrimony season having fun with studies away from the newest Pakistan Outlying House Survey. Since the consensus is that actual dowry numbers was increasing, or perhaps showcase a non-declining development, the newest figure implies the general interest out-of remember mistakes. Put differently, the fresh expanded this new gap between your interviewees’ wedding while the keep in mind big date, the much more likely he or she is so you’re able to overestimate brand new dowry number.

Relationship between ladies ounts. New range shows brand new predict actual amount of dowry regressed toward women’s relationships year. The newest shaded town reveals 95% trust interval of predict quantity of dowry. The details sources of (a) and you will (b) are Pakistan Rural Household Survey 2004, plus the outlying family questionnaire conducted by the creator within the 2013, respectively

step 3 Investigation

On best of all of our studies, investigation compiled within this investigation could be the basic to take on clearly an over-all habit of overestimate an amount paid a long time back. Just as the attributes of before obtained studies, ours are retrospective; however, centered on it inclination, we such observed specific operate to minimize survey keep in mind mistakes. Such as for example, we asked for the level of one another society-established dowry (non-retrospective) and personal dowry amount paid at the time of the fresh new respondent’s wedding (retrospective). Since Pakistani dowry consists of gold/precious jewelry, outfits, seats, cooking utensils, and the like, we queried dowry wide variety by the items. Whenever we noticed a great respondent’s overestimation of the dowry count, especially in the way it is from a marriage one taken place an excellent very long time back, due to the fact dowry is actually demonstrated, we could and you can did check these amounts that have individuals who went to the fresh new ceremony. Thus, all of our investigation on forecast real levels of dowry (Fig. 1b) don’t tell you people decreasing trend, having said that which have those individuals advertised in Fig. 1a.

step 3.step 1 Survey

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 < 5,>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).