Does Rising Inequality Delay Marriage? Evidence from India
Top incomes in India have been rising sharply, relative to incomes in the rest of the distribution. In this paper, we show that this phenomenon has resulted in a delay in female marriage. Our analysis takes advantage of variation in earnings distributions across narrowly defined marriage markets. We examine a number of hypotheses, and conclude that the pattern of results suggests a mechanism in which increases in top male incomes prolong the duration of marital search on the part of women