Working Paper: NBER ID: w22586
Authors: Fali Huang; Ginger Zhe Jin; Lixin Colin Xu
Abstract: While parental matchmaking has been widespread throughout history and across countries, we know little about the relationship between parental matchmaking and marriage outcomes. Does parental involvement in matchmaking help ensure their needs are better taken care of by married children? This paper finds supportive evidence using a survey of Chinese couples. In particular, parental involvement in matchmaking is associated with having a more submissive wife, a greater number of children, a higher likelihood of having any male children, and a stronger belief of the husband in providing old age support to his parents. These benefits, however, are achieved at the cost of less marital harmony within the couple and lower market income of the wife. The results render support to and extend the findings of Becker, Murphy and Spenkuch (2015) where parents meddle with children's preferences to ensure their commitment to providing parental goods such as old age support.
Keywords: Marriage; Matchmaking; Parental Matchmaking; China; Agency Cost; Old Age Support; Parental Goods; Preference Manipulation; Endogenous Institutions
JEL Codes: D82; D83; J12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Parental matchmaking (C78) | wife submissiveness (D13) |
| Parental matchmaking (C78) | number of children (J13) |
| Parental matchmaking (C78) | husbands' beliefs about old age support (J26) |
| Parental matchmaking (C78) | lower marital harmony (J12) |