Potential (Mis)Match? Marriage Markets amidst Socio-Demographic Change in India 2005-2050

Ridhi Kashyap, University of Oxford and Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Albert Esteve, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Joan Garcia Roman, University of Minnesota

We explore the impact of socio-demographic change on marriage patterns in India by examining the hypothetical consequences of applying current marriage propensities to future population projections. Future population prospects for India indicate three trends that will impact marriage patterns: female-deficit in sex ratios at birth (SRB); declining birth cohort size; female educational expansion. Existing literature posits a marriage squeeze for men arising from skewed SRBs, but does not model effects of educational expansion. We: i) systematize contemporary propensities to marry by age and education and by age-only of spouses applying Schoen’s harmonic mean marriage function to survey data; ii) apply contemporary propensities to multi-state population projections by educational attainment using a longitudinal iterative projection procedure. If today’s age patterns of marriage are viewed against age-sex population composition until 2050, men experience declining intensity of marriage. However, when education is included, women, particularly those with higher education experience rise in non-marriage.