Sex ratios and racial differences in marriage rates in South Africa

In South Africa, marriage rates among white women aged 20 to 34 are at least twice as high as marriage rates among African women in the same age cohort. This paper compares the relationship between alternative definitions of sex ratios and marriage outcomes among African and white women using matched data from the 2001 Population Census and the South African Labour Force Surveys. We show that among both white and African women, simple sex ratios, which capture the quantity of unmarried men relative to women in local marriage markets, are significant predictors of marriage. However, among African women, economic-based measures of “marriageability”, which take into account the quality of available men, perform even better in predicting marriage. Our findings are consistent with the argument that the payment of bridewealth (or ilobolo) by a husband to the prospective wife’s family acts as a financial constraint to marriage among African couples, raising the “marriageability” criteria of men.