CAN'T BUY ME LOVE? A FIELD EXPERIMENT EXPLORING THE TRADE-OFF BETWEEN INCOME AND CASTE-STATUS IN AN INDIAN MATRIMONIAL MARKET

A large body of literature depicts that status‐based discrimination is pervasive, but is silent on how economic incentive interacts with such discrimination. This study addresses this question by designing a field experiment in a reputable arranged marriage market that is prone to strong caste‐statu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Economic inquiry 2012-04, Vol.50 (2), p.534-550
Main Authors: DUGAR, SUBHASISH, BHATTACHARYA, HAIMANTI, REILEY, DAVID
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Arranged marriage
Caste
Discrimination
Economic incentives
Experiments
Females
Field study
Income
India
Males
Print advertising
Race discrimination
Social status
Trade-off
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Summary:A large body of literature depicts that status‐based discrimination is pervasive, but is silent on how economic incentive interacts with such discrimination. This study addresses this question by designing a field experiment in a reputable arranged marriage market that is prone to strong caste‐status‐based discrimination. We place newspaper advertisements of potential grooms by systematically varying their caste and income and focus on responses of higher‐caste females to lower‐caste males. The substantive finding is that despite the evidence of discrimination, discriminatory behavior of higher‐status females decreases with an increase in the advertised monthly income of lower‐status males. (JEL C93, J12, J15)
ISSN:0095-2583
1465-7295
DOI:10.1111/j.1465-7295.2011.00398.x