Childhood Exposure to School Expansion and Changes in Inter-Caste Marriage in India

Nitin Kumar Bharti, New York University Abu Dhabi
Luca Maria Pesando, New York University Abu Dhabi
Koyel KS Sarkar, New York University, AD
Neha Bailwal, Indian Statistical Institute Delhi

Marriage in India is largely controlled by hanging norms such as arranged marriage and sociocultural markers such as the caste system. Caste endogamy, i.e., marrying within the same caste, remains one of the strongest pillars of the caste system in the Indian society, with close to 86% of endogamous marriages in the 2020 marriage cohort. This study explores whether childhood exposure to dynamics of school expansion in rural India had any causal impact on the increase in ICM exploiting variation in school openings across different locations at different times. To do so, we rely on georeferenced information from three large-scale datasets, the District Information System for Education (DISE), the Indian Census 2011, and the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2014-15 and 2019-21. A one standard deviation (SD) change in school openings (per village) increases ICM by 5.67%. Exploring the underlying mechanisms, we do not find completed years of education to be the driver, suggesting contact theory, delayed age at marriage, and/or education assortativity are more plausible mechanisms. These results indicate that education, development, and broader modernization forces can be a driver of family change in India, albeit their relevance may be lower than in other low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Keywords: Families, Unions and Households, Human Capital, Education, and Work, Population and Development

See paper.