Proposal Number: 0527751 Mobarak, Ahmed University of Colorado Boulder
Consanguineous marriages remain common practice in much of the developing world despite their well-documented biological and genetic risks for the offspring of such unions. The objective of this study is to theoretically account for and empirically document the socio-economic benefits of consanguineous unions that help to sustain these types of marriages. A collective model of intra-household allocation and assortative spousal matching motivates the empirical investigation. The model predicts that for spouses and their children, the economic benefits of consanguineous marriages should depend on spousal incomes, the autonomy of spousal income from parental income, and external distribution factors like the sex ratio, cultural gender norms, and marriage/divorce legislation. Using existing as well as yet-to-be-gathered data from four Bangladeshi communities, the project will (a) document the prevalence of consanguinity for a country for which such numbers currently do not exist, (b) quantify the trade-off between the biological risks and any possible socio-economic benefits (in terms of long-run outcomes for children) of consanguinity, (c) study decision-making in the marriage market, including the characteristics of potential spouses that families consider to be most attractive, and (d) investigate the creation of international migration links through marriage.
The dataset that will be produced will allow researchers in Economics, Sociology, Biology, Genetics and the Medical Sciences to study a variety of questions relating to intra-household decision-making, the nature of social networks, and the risk of genetic disorders stemming from consanguinity. The proposed research is a unique cross- and multidisciplinary approach to the question of trade-offs between the perceived social and economic benefits of consanguineous marriage as opposed to the recognized biological disadvantages. Bangladesh, a country of over 140 million is undergoing an epidemiological transition from a predominantly infectious to a non-communicable disease profile, is an ideal setting for the study, and the growing numbers of Bangladeshis now resident in Western countries add a significant new dimension to the work. Study findings are potentially generalizable to countries and societies currently undergoing transition from predominantly infectious to non-communicable disease profiles.
