How dowry shapes migration decisions in modern India

While migration is a critical driver of economic development, it may disrupt arrangements wherein parents rely on sons for old-age support. Leveraging new survey data, this article shows that at the time of marriage, some portion of the bride’s family’s transfers may be appropriated by the groom’s parents. These resources can serve as upfront compensation for the loss of co-resident support and enable migration.

Dowry is a central and widely criticised institution in India (Jayachandran 2015, Chiplunkar and Weaver 2023). Despite its ubiquity, there has been surprisingly little quantitative evidence on how these large marital payments are allocated across family members, or how this allocation influences household decision-making. These questions matter because they speak directly to why dowry traditions have persisted into modern times. Using new survey data, we are able, for the first time, to document how dowry is divided within families and examine its role in resolving frictions between parents and sons when migration occurs.

Migration itself is a critical driver of economic development, enabling workers to leave rural areas with low returns for cities with higher wages. Yet a large body of research has shown that migration is limited by financial constraints (Bazzi 2017, Bryan and Morten 2019), risks to income and insurance (Bryan et al. 2014, Lagakos et al. 2023), and the erosion of local support networks (Munshi and Rosenzweig 2016, Fernando 2022). Another constraint is that migration disrupts intergenerational arrangements in which parents rely on sons for old-age support (Bau 2021).

Our new research (Bau, Khanna, Low and Voena 2025) examines how the longstanding institution of dowry influences this trade-off between migration and parental support. We explore an overlooked role of dowry: reallocating resources between generations at the time of marriage to mitigate the frictions created by migration.

A model of dowry and migration

We begin by developing a model in which parents and sons jointly make decisions over migration and resource sharing. When sons migrate, it becomes more costly to transfer income back to parents, either through remittances or services. Families that expect substantial support from sons may therefore choose not to have the son migrate unless returns are sufficiently high.

Dowry provides a mechanism to address this constraint. At the time of marriage, some portion of the bride’s family’s transfers can be appropriated by the groom’s parents. These resources serve as upfront compensation for the loss of future co-resident support, reducing the returns required for a son to migrate. Our model predicts that parents are more likely to keep dowry when sons migrate, especially if sons obtain higher-paying jobs; that parents who receive remittances are also more likely to have retained dowry; and that migration rates should be higher in areas with stronger dowry traditions. Finally, when migration costs fall, the migration response should be larger in places with stronger dowry practices.

Measuring dowry allocation

While there is rich qualitative evidence that grooms’ parents often retain dowry (All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), 2003, Goody and Tambiah 1973), systematic quantitative evidence has been lacking. Most existing surveys (such as the Rural Economic and Demographic Survey or the India Human Development Survey) report the size of dowry payments but not who controls them. To fill this gap, we compiled two new datasets.

The first is a Destination Survey of over 550 male workers in Delhi, which records marriage gifts and their ownership. The second is an Origin Survey of more than 2,500 households across six northern and central Indian states, which asked parents about dowries at their sons’ weddings. Together, these surveys provide the first quantitative evidence on how dowry is divided between sons, brides, and parents.

In the Delhi sample, 45% of grooms’ parents reported retaining part of the dowry; in the rural sample, only 29% did. These patterns align with our model’s prediction that dowry is sometimes, but not always, reallocated to parents.

Figure 1. Who controls dowry?

Figure 1 illustrates the average shares of dowry retained by different parties. Brides retained around 13% of marriage gifts, grooms controlled 41%, and grooms’ parents retained 43%. This challenges the view of dowry as a uniform ‘groom price’. Instead, property rights are divided across multiple family members, and grooms’ parents often claim a substantial share.

Importantly, dowry retention by parents is more common when sons migrate. Parents are also more likely to keep dowry when sons have higher occupational scores, holding constant the father’s occupation. Parents who later receive remittances are significantly more likely to have retained dowry at the time of marriage, consistent with dowry and remittances functioning as complementary mechanisms of support.

Dowry traditions and migration patterns

To test whether dowry traditions shape migration more broadly, we combine nationally representative data from the 2007-08 National Sample Survey migration module with anthropological data on which groups historically practiced dowry (Giuliano and Nunn 2018). While dowry payments are widespread today, variation in historical traditions predicts the size and form of payments across districts.

Using this variation, we find that male migration rates are higher in districts with stronger dowry traditions, controlling for a wide range of district-level factors. These results support the idea that dowry facilitates migration by reallocating resources between generations at the time of marriage.

Highways and the cost of migration

Our model also predicts that dowry practices interact with policies that lower migration costs. To test this, we exploit the staggered rollout of India’s Golden Quadrilateral and North-South/East-West highway systems, one of the largest infrastructure projects in the country’s history. These highways connected districts to major markets, reducing the cost of long-distance migration.

We compare districts with strong and weak historical dowry traditions. Migration increased in both, but the rise was substantially larger in areas with stronger dowry practices.

Figure 2. Highways and migration

Figure 2 shows how migration responded to highway construction. Before the highways, migration rates in strong- and weak-dowry districts had similar trends. After construction, migration surged in districts with strong dowry traditions, while changes were muted elsewhere. These findings demonstrate that cultural institutions like dowry can shape the effects of large-scale infrastructure investments.

Why does dowry persist?

Dowry has often been interpreted as a bequest to daughters, similar to Europe’s historical dowry systems (Goody and Tambiah 1973, Botticini and Siow 2003). In contemporary India, however, it often functions differently. Our results provide the first quantitative evidence that dowry resources are frequently retained by grooms’ parents, and that this allocation is associated with migration. This suggests that the persistence of dowries may partly reflect its role in helping families manage intergenerational frictions in a context of rising migration and declining patrilocality.

The economic and social implications of dowries

Understanding the persistence of dowry requires recognising its economic as well as social dimensions. While the practice has severe consequences for women’s welfare, it also facilitates intergenerational transfers that can enable migration. Our findings show that parents often retain part of the dowry, especially when sons migrate, and that dowry traditions are linked to higher migration rates both in cross-sectional data and in response to reductions in migration costs from highway construction.

More broadly, our results highlight how cultural institutions interact with economic development. Policies that aim to promote migration or reshape household behaviour may have heterogeneous effects depending on underlying traditions. The case of dowry illustrates that cultural practices can evolve to play new economic roles, even as they create costs elsewhere.

This article first appeared on VoxDev.