Date: August 2000 Equilibrating the Marriage Market in a Rapidly Growing Population: Evidence from Rural Bangladesh

In this paper we show how relatively small changes in the age at marriage can equilibrate the marriage market despite relatively large differences in the supply of men and women of marriageable age. In particular, a simple demographic model is developed that provides a prediction about the relationship between relative cohort size and age at marriage that differs markedly from that of the static model that has been emphasized in the previous literature. We illustrate this point empirically using micro-level from a rural area of Bangladesh which experienced a large increase in age at marriage for women (3.2 years) over the period from 1975 to 1990 at the same time that the relative supply of women in the marriage market was decreasing. We then estimate a behavioral model characterizing the relative values of men and women with different characteristics in the marriage market in order to better understand why female age at marriage served as the primary equilibrating mechanism in this population. The estimates suggest that the rise in the age at marriage was in part facilitated by a decline in the extent to which youth was valued by potential grooms and/or their families.