Marry for What? Caste and Mate Selection in Modern India

This paper analyzes how preferences for a non-economic characteristic, such as caste, canaffect equilibrium patterns of matching in the marriage market, and empirically evaluates thisin the context of arranged marriages among middle-class Indians. We develop a model thatdemonstrates how the equilibrium consequences of caste depend on whether we observe a biastowards one's own group or if there is a preference for \marrying up". We then estimateactual preferences for caste, education, beauty, and other attributes using a unique data set onindividuals who placed matrimonial advertisements in a major newspaper, the responses theyreceived, and how they ranked them. Our key empirical finding is the presence of a strongpreference for in-caste marriage. We find that in equilibrium, as predicted by our theoreticalframework, these preferences do little to alter the matching patterns on non-caste attributes,and so people do not have to sacrifice much to marry within caste. This allows caste to remaina persistent feature of the Indian marriage market.[...]