2.dos Problems with existing analysis

Once the dowry was legitimately prohibited in Asia and you may Bangladesh, anybody always think twice to inform you accurate dowry quantity. The quality question into the dowry regarding Indian dataset requires from the community-situated dowry. Instance, the fresh new India Human Advancement Survey asks “Basically in the region to have a family group eg yours, exactly what are the style of items that are provided as the presents during the time of the new daughter’s wedding?” A community-depending dowry isn’t the just like an individual dowry, which is paid down by bride’s parents during relationships. Alternatively, issue of dowry allows simply a digital address, i.elizabeth., even when a confident quantity of dowry try paid down (elizabeth.grams., Questionnaire on the Reputation of females and you can Virility in both India and Pakistan). A binary answer, naturally, doesn’t give much info. The norm out of if or not a confident dowry amount is provided matches to, that’s mainly explained because of the, ethnic, spiritual, and you can status backgrounds inside Southern area China.

As dowry is not legitimately blocked in Pakistan, the amount truly repaid from the feminine respondent’s parents are going to be questioned rather than scheduling inside a beneficial Pakistani dataset including the Pakistan Outlying Family Survey. Whether or not Pakistani interviewees might not purposefully hide correct information about dowry methods, the fresh new survey can get nevertheless contain remember errors while the respondents have to keep in mind the dowry amount repaid by the mothers previously. Contour 1a plots find Cres women of land the predicted number of actual dowry philosophy measured into the Pakistani Rupees inside 2004 to relationship season using data off new Pakistan Outlying Home Questionnaire. While the consensus would be the fact actual dowry number was increasing, or perhaps display a non-decreasing trend, the newest profile means the overall tendency regarding remember mistakes. Simply put, the latest expanded new pit involving the interviewees’ wedding while the recall date, the much more likely he or she is to overestimate new dowry matter.

Relationships anywhere between women’s ounts. The latest range suggests new forecast real number of dowry regressed into ladies matrimony season. New shaded urban area reveals 95% confidence period of your own predicted amount of dowry. The data sourced elements of (a) and you will (b) was Pakistan Outlying Family Survey 2004, together with outlying home survey used of the writer inside the 2013, correspondingly

step 3 Analysis

Into the best of our degree, research accumulated contained in this investigation may be the earliest to adopt explicitly a standard habit of overestimate an amount paid off very long before. Just like the characteristics regarding in earlier times gathered studies, ours are retrospective; not, centered on it interest, i such as for instance adopted specific work to minimize survey recall mistakes. Particularly, i wanted the degree of one another people-mainly based dowry (non-retrospective) and private dowry matter reduced during the time of the respondent’s marriage (retrospective). Since the Pakistani dowry contains silver/accessories, outfits, furniture, kitchenware, etc, i queried dowry numbers from the item. When we noticed an effective respondent’s overestimation of your dowry amount, particularly in the way it is out of a married relationship you to definitely happened a long time back, because the dowry are shown, we can and performed glance at such numbers having those who attended new service. Thus, all of our investigation into predict real degrees of dowry (Fig. 1b) don’t tell you any decreasing trend, on the other hand with those individuals reported inside Fig. 1a.

step 3.1 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 < 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).