Reports
Discussion Papers
No.368 Marriage as Women's Old Age Insurance: Evidence from Migration and Land Inheritance Practices in Rural Tanzania
by KUDO Yuya
September 2012
ABSTRACT
In
a
traditional
system
of
exogamous
and
patrilocal
marriage
prevalent
in
much
of
Sub-Saharan
Africa,
when
she
marries,
a
rural
woman
typically
leaves
her
kin
to
reside
with
her
husband
living
outside
her
natal
village.
Since
a
village
that
allows
a
widow
to
inherit
her
late
husband's
land
can
provide
her
with
old
age
security,
single
females
living
outside
the
village
are
more
likely
to
marry
into
the
village.
Using
a
natural
experimental
setting,
provided
by
the
longitudinal
household
panel
data
drawn
from
rural
Tanzania
for
the
period
from
1991
to
2004,
during
which
several
villages
that
initially
banned
a
widow's
land
inheritance
removed
this
discrimination,
this
study
provides
evidence
in
support
of
this
view,
whereby
altering
a
customary
land
inheritance
rules
in
a
village
in
favor
of
widows
increased
the
probability
of
males
marrying
in
that
village.
This
finding
suggests
that
providing
rural
women
with
old
age
protection
(e.g.,
insurance,
livelihood
protection)
has
remarkable
spatial
and
temporal
welfare
effects
by
influencing
their
decision
to
marry.
Keywords:
Demography,
Gender
empowerment,
Land
ownership,
Social
custom,
Social
security,
Widowhood
JEL
classification:
J12,
J14,
K11,
Q15,
R23
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