Marrying Up or Matching Even? Socioeconomic Drivers of Spousal Age Gaps in India
Praveen, Suddhasil Siddhanta, and Anoshua Chaudhuri

TL;DR
This paper investigates the socio-economic factors influencing spousal age gaps in India, revealing complex urban-rural differences and the impact of education, income, and social norms on marriage patterns.
Contribution
It provides the first empirical analysis of how social, economic, and cultural factors shape spousal age gaps in Indian society, using NSSO data and advanced regression methods.
Findings
Rural prosperity and educational hypergamy widen age gaps.
Urban growth of white-collar jobs initially narrows age gaps.
Nonlinear income effects suggest limited marriage mobility for women.
Abstract
This study examines the determinants of the spousal age gap (SAG) in India, utilizing data from the 61st and 68th rounds of the National Sample Survey (NSSO). We employ regression analysis, including instrumental variables, to address selection bias and account for unobservable factors. We hypothesize an inverted U-shaped relationship between educational assortative mating and SAG, where, keeping the husband's education constant at the graduation level, the SAG first widens and then narrows as the wife's education level increases from primary to postgraduate. This pattern is shaped by distinct socio-economic factors across rural and urban settings. In rural India, increasing prosperity, changes in family structure, and educational hypergamy contribute to a wider age gap, with the influence of bride squeeze further exacerbating this disparity. Conversely, in urban areas, while the growth…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsDemographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
MethodsSelf-Attention Guidance
