2.dos Difficulties with established research
Just like the dowry try legitimately blocked when you look at the Asia and you can Bangladesh, anyone constantly hesitate to reveal direct dowry numbers. The standard matter with the dowry in the Indian dataset requires regarding community-mainly based dowry. Like, the brand new India Peoples Creativity Survey requires “Basically in your community getting a family group such as your own, exactly what are the style of items that are offered while the merchandise at the time of the latest daughter’s matrimony?” A community-situated dowry is not the identical to an individual dowry, that is repaid of the bride’s mothers at the time of marriage. As an alternative, practical question regarding dowry lets only a binary answer, i.age., though a confident level of dowry are paid off (age.grams., Questionnaire into Status of women and you will Fertility in both India and you will Pakistan). A digital answer, of course, does not promote much considerably more details. Standard out of whether or not a positive dowry amount is offered matches so you can, and is largely said from the, ethnic, religious, and you may status experiences into the Southern area China.
As dowry is not legitimately prohibited during the Pakistan, the total amount truly paid back by the female respondent’s parents should be asked in place of scheduling in an effective Pakistani dataset including the Pakistan Rural Family Survey. Regardless of if Pakistani interviewees will most likely not purposefully cover genuine information regarding dowry techniques, brand new questionnaire will get however contain keep in mind mistakes given that respondents need bear in mind the new dowry count paid back by the its mothers previously. Profile 1a plots the fresh predicted quantity of real dowry philosophy measured for the Pakistani Rupees from inside the 2004 on to wedding seasons using research off the latest Pakistan Outlying Domestic Survey. Just like the opinion is the fact real dowry quantity is broadening, or perhaps showcase a non-decreasing pattern, the fresh shape indicates all round interest out of keep in mind problems. To phrase it differently, the fresh new stretched this new gap within interviewees’ relationships and the remember go out, a lot more likely he’s to overestimate the fresh dowry amount.
Relationships ranging from ladies ounts. The latest range shows this new predict real quantity of dowry regressed towards women’s relationship 12 months. The brand new shady area shows 95% trust period of the predicted level of dowry. The info types of (a) and you can (b) was Pakistan Outlying House Questionnaire 2004, while the rural domestic questionnaire presented by the journalist during the 2013, correspondingly
step three Research
For the better of all of our education, studies accumulated within data are definitely the very first to take on explicitly an over-all tendency to overestimate an amount paid back very long ago. Just as the attributes regarding prior to now built-up study, ours are also retrospective; but not, considering this interest, i such as accompanied certain services to minimize questionnaire bear in mind errors. Such as for instance, we asked for the level of both society-built dowry (non-retrospective) and private dowry number paid down during the respondent’s wedding (retrospective). Since Pakistani dowry include silver/jewellery, clothes, furniture, kitchenware, etc, we queried dowry wide variety by items. When we sensed a good respondent’s overestimation of the dowry amount, especially in possible regarding a wedding you to definitely taken place an excellent lifetime before, just like the dowry are exhibited, we could and you will did consider these types of numbers that have people that attended brand new service. Consequently, the research to the predict real levels of dowry (Fig. 1b) do not inform you any decreasing development, however that have people claimed from inside the Fig. 1a.
step three.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. Panama kadД±n arasД±ndaki fark, 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).