Missing daughters, missing brides?

摘要

Even in countries where there is a male-biased sex ratio, it is still possible for the marriage market to be balanced if men marry younger women and population is growing. We define a Missing Brides Index to reflect the intensity of the possible imbalance at steady state, taking into account the endogeneity of population growth. Taking international data on ages at marriage, fertility rate, and sex ratio at birth, we rank countries according to the Missing Brides Index.