Returns-Based Beliefs and The Prisoner's Dilemma

Economists have highlighted a number of game-theoretic contradictions and paradoxes i

Religion and the economics of fertility in south India

This thesis provides an account of the interplay between the economic, demographic and religious factors which influence women's age at first marriage, their adoption of contraception and their fertility, in a group of rural communities in southern India. In so doing, it also assesses possible implications for state-level population policies in India, which may need to take into account differences in nuptiality, contraceptive adoption and fertility across religious groups. Religion is conceptualised as affecting demography in two ways: first, through its philosophical content or 'particularised theology', and second, in terms of `characteristics' or socio-economic differences between members of different religious groups. The focus of this study is Hindu-Muslim demographics in south India. Hence, the 'particularised theology' component is dealt with by undertaking, in Chapter I, a detailed comparison of the philosophical content of Islam and Hinduism on marriage, birth control, the position of women, and the importance of children within the family. The main finding is that with the exception of provisions on birth control, there is little difference between Hinduism and Islam in their theological positions on demographic issues. The 'characteristics' component is dealt with by including socio-economic variables in the econometric models. The aim is to investigate whether there are any differences across religions in the age at marriage, fertility and the decision to use contraception, after controlling for various economic, social and biological factors

The Effectiveness of Jobs Reservation: Caste, Religion, and Economic Status in India

This article investigates the effect of jobs reservation on improving the economic opportunities of persons belonging to India’s Scheduled Castes (SC)and Scheduled Tribes (ST). Using employment data from the 55th NSS round, the authors estimate the probabilities of different social groups in India being in one of three categories of economic status: own account workers; regular salaried or wage workers; casual wage labourers. Theseprobabilities are then used to decompose the difference between a group X and forward caste Hindus in the proportions of their members in regular salaried or wage employment. This decomposition allows us to distinguish between two forms of difference between group X and forward caste Hindus: ‘attribute’ differences and ‘coefficient’ differences. The authors measure the effects of positive discriminationin raising the proportions of ST/SC persons in regular salaried employment, and the discriminatory bias against Muslims who do not benefit from such policies. They conclude that the boost provided by jobs reservation policies was around 5 percentage points. They also conclude that an alternative and more effective way of raising the proportion of men from the SC/ST groups in regular salaried or wageemployment would be to improve theiremployment-related attributes.Affirmative Action; Social Groups; India

The Economics of Consanguinity

The institution of consanguineous marriage - a marriage contracted between close biological relatives - has been a basic building block of many societies in different parts of the world. This paper argues that the practice of consanguinity is closely related to the practice of dowry, and that both arise in response to an agency problem between the families of a bride and a groom. When marriage contracts are incomplete, dowries transfer control rights to the party with the highest incentives to invest in a marriage. When these transactions are costly however, consanguinity can be a more appropriate response since it directly reduces the agency cost. Our model predicts that dowry transfers are less likely to be observed in consanguineous unions, and that close-kin marriages are more prevalent at both extremes of the wealth distribution. An empirical analysis using data from Bangladesh delivers results consistent with the predictions of the model, lending strong support to our theory

Religion and Fertility in India: The role of son preference and daughter aversion

This paper brings together the notion of ‘son preference’ and the complementary concept of ‘daughter aversion’ to provide an explanation for larger Muslim, relative to Hindu, families in India. Just as sons bring ‘benefits’ to their parents, daughters impose ‘costs’ and complementing a desire to have sons is a desire not to have daughters. Consequently, the desire for sons increases family size while the fear of daughters limits it. A formal model, in which these two countervailing forces act so as to determine equilibrium family size and composition, is developed. Qualitative evidence about Hindus and Muslims in their attitudes towards sons and daughters is presented; as are quantitative results from a Poisson regression model estimated on data for 10,548 women who had attained their equilibrium family size. The analysis concludes that higher Muslim fertility compared to Hindus may in reality reflect significantly lower levels of daughter aversion among this community

Social interactions, ethnicity, religion, and fertility in Kenya

AbstractReproductive externalities are important for fertility behavior in Kenya. We identify from anthropology structural forms of social interaction operating across individuals belonging to different ethnic and religious groups on the number of children ever born. We use the 1998 Demographic and Health Survey, combined with primary meteorological data on Kenya, and GMM methods, to show that social interaction effects by ethnicity are important over and above an individual's characteristics such as their religion to explain variations in fertility. Our findings have implications for policy debates in Kenya and in other developing countries about ethnic, religious, and other differences in fertility behavior.St Catharine's College, Cambridg

The economics of consanguineous marriages

The institution of consanguineous marriage-a marriage contracted between close biological relatives-has been a basic building block of many societies in different parts of the world. This paper argues that the practice of consanguinity is closely related to the practice of dowry, and that both arise in response to an agency problem between the families of a bride and a groom. When marriage contracts are incomplete, dowries transfer control rights to the party with the highest incentives to invest in a marriage. When these transactions are costly however, consanguinity can be a more appropriate response since it directly reduces the agency cost. The paper's model predicts that dowry transfers are less likely to be observed in consanguineous unions. It also emphasizes the effect of credit constraints on the relative prevalence of dowry payment and consanguinity. An empirical analysis using data from Bangladesh delivers robust results consistent with the predictions of the model.Anthropology,Population Policies,Education and Society,Population&Development,Gender and Law

Missing women and India's religious demography

The authors use recent data from the 2006 National Family Health Survey of India to explore the relationship between religion and demographic behavior. They find that fertility and mortality vary not only between religious groups, but also across caste groups. These groups also differ with respect to socio-economic status. The central finding of this paper is that despite their socio-economic disadvantages, Muslims have higher fertility than their Hindu counterparts and also exhibit lower levels of infant mortality (particularly female infant mortality). This effect is robust to the inclusion of controls for non-religious factors such as socio-economic status and area of residence. This result has important policy implications because it suggests that India's problem of"missing women"may be concentrated in particular groups. The authors conclude that religion and caste play a key role in determining the demographic characteristics of India.Population Policies,Gender and Law,Gender and Health,Adolescent Health,Population&Development