The largest obstacle to help you performing empirical training towards the dowry is the run out of otherwise inadequacy of information

2.dos Issues with current studies

Because dowry are lawfully blocked from inside the India and Bangladesh, somebody usually hesitate to inform you right dowry wide variety. The quality concern towards the web siМ‡tesiМ‡niМ‡ ziМ‡yaret ediМ‡n dowry on the Indian dataset requires in the community-established dowry. Instance, the new India People Invention Survey requires “Essentially in the region to have a household eg a, exactly what are the form of points that are provided since the gift suggestions during the fresh new daughter’s matrimony?” A community-established dowry is not necessarily the same as a single dowry, which is paid off by bride’s mothers during the time of marriage. Instead, the question away from dowry allows only a binary answer, i.e., no matter if a positive number of dowry try paid off (age.grams., Questionnaire towards the Standing of females and you may Virility both in Asia and you may Pakistan). A digital answer, however, does not offer much considerably more details. Typical regarding whether a confident dowry amount emerges corresponds so you’re able to, which will be largely explained because of the, cultural, spiritual, and you can status backgrounds from inside the Southern area Asia.

As the dowry is not lawfully banned into the Pakistan, the quantity in person paid off because of the feminine respondent’s parents is questioned rather than scheduling from inside the good Pakistani dataset for instance the Pakistan Rural Household Survey. No matter if Pakistani interviewees might not purposefully cover true information about dowry means, new questionnaire will get however include bear in mind errors because respondents have to remember the fresh new dowry count paid down from the their mothers in the past. Contour 1a plots the new forecast level of actual dowry opinions measured when you look at the Pakistani Rupees in the 2004 onto matrimony season having fun with study away from the fresh Pakistan Rural Family Questionnaire. As the opinion would be the fact real dowry amounts try broadening, or perhaps exhibit a low-declining development, the latest shape indicates the entire desire of recall problems. Simply put, the newest stretched the brand new gap amongst the interviewees’ wedding while the remember big date, the much more likely he’s so you can overestimate new dowry number.

Dating ranging from ladies’ ounts. The fresh new range shows the newest predict real number of dowry regressed toward ladies’ wedding 12 months. The new shady urban area suggests 95% believe period of predicted number of dowry. The data resources of (a) and you can (b) is actually Pakistan Rural Household Questionnaire 2004, and the outlying house survey held because of the copywriter when you look at the 2013, respectively

step three Investigation

Into good the training, research built-up in this research are the earliest to adopt clearly a general habit of overestimate a cost repaid extended in the past. Just as the functions regarding previously amassed analysis, ours also are retrospective; not, centered on it desire, we eg then followed specific perform to minimize questionnaire keep in mind errors. Eg, i requested the level of both neighborhood-oriented dowry (non-retrospective) and private dowry matter repaid in the course of the brand new respondent’s matrimony (retrospective). Since Pakistani dowry include gold/jewellery, clothes, furniture, cooking utensils, etc, i queried dowry quantity of the item. Whenever we believed an excellent respondent’s overestimation of your own dowry amount, especially in the case out-of a married relationship one to occurred a good number of years in the past, because the dowry was demonstrated, we are able to and you will did have a look at these numbers that have people that attended new ceremony. Consequently, our data towards the forecast genuine amounts of dowry (Fig. 1b) do not inform you people decreasing development, conversely that have people reported during the Fig. 1a.

3.1 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 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).