2.2 Complications with existing studies
Since the dowry is actually lawfully blocked inside the Asia and you can Bangladesh, some body always hesitate to show direct dowry numbers. The high quality question towards the dowry regarding the Indian dataset requires regarding community-oriented dowry. For example, the fresh new India Individual Advancement Survey asks “Essentially in your community to possess a family group such your personal, which are the sorts of items that are supplied since the gift ideas at the time of the fresh daughter’s relationship?” A community-established dowry is not the just like an individual dowry, that’s paid from the bride’s parents during wedding. Instead, practical question regarding dowry lets just a binary respond to, i.elizabeth., although a confident number of dowry are paid back (age.g., Survey into Position of women and you may Fertility both in India and Pakistan). A binary answer, needless to say, does not give far considerably more details. Typical regarding if a positive dowry count emerges corresponds so you can, and that is mainly informed me because of the, ethnic, spiritual, and you may caste experiences in the Southern area Asia.
As the dowry isn’t legitimately blocked from inside the Pakistan, the total amount individually paid down by the female respondent’s mothers are going to be questioned in place of scheduling when you look at the an effective Pakistani dataset including the Pakistan Rural Home Questionnaire. Even if Pakistani interviewees might not intentionally cover real information on dowry means, the latest survey could possibly get still incorporate remember errors due to the fact participants need keep in mind the latest dowry count repaid of the its parents several years ago. Contour 1a plots the brand new predicted level of real dowry viewpoints counted during the Pakistani Rupees when you look at the 2004 on to matrimony year having fun with analysis away from the fresh new Pakistan Rural Home Survey. While the consensus is the fact real dowry number is increasing, or perhaps display a non-declining trend Hong kong girls most beautiful in the world, this new profile indicates the overall interest regarding remember mistakes. Put differently, the new stretched the newest gap amongst the interviewees’ wedding additionally the remember time, a lot more likely he could be in order to overestimate the newest dowry count.
Matchmaking between ladies’ ounts. This new line reveals the fresh predicted real quantity of dowry regressed towards the ladies relationships year. The fresh shaded area suggests 95% trust period of one’s forecast amount of dowry. The details types of (a) and you may (b) are Pakistan Outlying House Questionnaire 2004, while the rural family questionnaire used from the publisher inside the 2013, correspondingly
step three Studies
To the better of the knowledge, research compiled within analysis are the first to consider clearly a broad habit of overestimate a price paid lengthy ago. Just as the functions regarding before built-up study, ours are retrospective; although not, centered on which interest, we including implemented particular services to minimize survey bear in mind errors. Like, i requested the degree of each other community-dependent dowry (non-retrospective) and private dowry matter paid in the course of the new respondent’s wedding (retrospective). As the Pakistani dowry includes gold/jewelry, attire, furniture, cooking utensils, etc, we queried dowry wide variety of the items. Whenever we noticed a beneficial respondent’s overestimation of one’s dowry amount, particularly in happening regarding a married relationship one took place a good few years before, given that dowry is displayed, we could and you can performed check such quantity which have people that went to the fresh new service. For that reason, our studies to the forecast real degrees of dowry (Fig. 1b) don’t let you know one decreasing development, conversely that have those people said inside Fig. 1a.
step three.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).