Marriage Market in Pakistan: Consanguinity, Educational Assortative Mating, and Fertility

Nearly half of all marriages in Pakistan are consanguineous, with 29 and 21% of women marrying first cousins on their father’s and mother’s sides, respectively. Despite its high prevalence, little is known about the change over time in consanguineous unions in Pakistan. Examining the patterns of the marriage market is particularly important given the substantial improvement in women’s education as women’s education is associated with the decline in consanguineous unions across the world. Our analysis, based on four waves of nationally representative Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) (1990-91, 2006-07, 2012-13, and 2017-18) of currently married women ages 15–49 shows that the prevalence of consanguineous unions has remained stable over time. In fact, a slight increase in cousin marriages is observed in 2006-07. Further, women’s education is negatively associated with cousin marriages. Historically, men in the country have had higher levels of education than women, leading to common occurrences of hypergamous unions (where the husband is more educated than the wife). However, with the advancement of women’s education over time, there has been an observed increase in educational hypogamy, where the wife is more educated than her husband. However, the rise in educational hypogamy has not changed the marriage market norms related to cousin marriages. Moreover, use of modern contraceptive methods is not associated with consanguineous unions. We found an inverse relationship between the children ever born (so far) and cousin marriages. Women in consanguineous marriages tend to have fewer children than women in non-consanguineous marriages. Contrary to common expectations, women in both hypogamous and hypergamous relationships tend to have more children than women whose spouses have the same level of education as them. Overall, the results show that consanguinity patterns are stable, and there is no evidence that the societal changes such as improvement in women’s education and urbanization over time have led to a substantial decline in cousin marriages in Pakistan.