Is the Legal Stick Enough? Unintended Consequences of a Polygamy Ban in Benin

Abhilasha Sahay, World Bank Group
Shatanjaya Dasgupta, Providence College

Are legal reforms enough to change deep-seated, socio-cultural conjugal practices? This paper studies the effect of a polygamy ban policy in Benin on marital outcomes. We find that the ban did reduce the incidence of polygamous unions but did not lead to a complete cessation of polygamous practices. Using a difference-in-difference model, exploiting cross-commune variation in prevalence of polygamy before the abolition, we find that, among polygamous marriages, the ban led to an increase in wife rank (by 33 percent) and spousal age gap (by 63 percent) but no change in spousal education difference. Further, women who faced a higher wife rank or larger spousal age gap post-ban, also faced a measurable decline in intra-household decision-making and reported greater acceptance of wife-beating. These results cumulatively point towards a deterioration in marital quality post-ban and reiterate the need to complement legal reforms with effective socialization of policies - including addressing harmful norms- to achieve intended outcomes.

Keywords: Population Policies, Economic Demography, Population, Shocks and Pandemics, Econometrics

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