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Dowry Inflation: Perception or Reality?

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Abstract

Research on South Asia has consistently documented increasing dowry amounts over the past several decades. Although recent studies have largely concluded this is due to an overall rise in prices, and therefore not a real increase per se, methodological limitations make this difficult to discern. In this paper, we assess: (1) if dowry amounts increased faster than the general inflation rate, and (2) how dowry amounts increased relative to income. Using data on rural Bangladesh from 1955 to 2010, we show trends in gross dowry, net dowry, and the ratio of dowry to income using multiple inflation adjustments. We find that only some aspects of dowries rose in certain periods, but the ratio of dowry to income steadily increased across time. We discuss implications of these results for understanding past contradictory findings and for gaining insight into the mechanisms by which widespread perceptions of dowry inflation may be maintained.

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Data Availability

Inflation data that support the findings of this study are included as part of the Online Resources. Data on dowry used in this paper are not de-identified, and therefore not available for public use.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Sarah Damaske, Dr. David Nolin, Dr. Susan Schaffnit, Dr. Robert Lynch, Dr. Saman Naz, and the Penn State Population Research Institute Family Working Group for their helpful comments and insights. This research was supported by funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to the Population Research Institute at The Pennsylvania State University for Population Research Infrastructure (P2C HD041025) and Family Demography Training (T32 HD007514); the National Science Foundation (BCS-0924630 & BCS-1839269); and The Pennsylvania State University Demography Graduate Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Criminology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Jane Lankes

  2. Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Mary K. Shenk

  3. Department of Integrative Biology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA

    Mary C. Towner

  4. Centre for Population, Urbanization and Climate Change, ICDDR,B (International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh), Dhaka, Bangladesh

    Nurul Alam

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Lankes, J., Shenk, M.K., Towner, M.C. et al. Dowry Inflation: Perception or Reality?. Popul Res Policy Rev 41, 1641–1672 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-022-09705-7

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