New Roles for Marriage in Urban Africa: Kinship Networks and the Labor Market in Kenya
利用肯尼亚基苏木的新数据，发现婚姻显著提升城市移民的就业和收入，但同时也增加了对大家庭的汇款义务，且高能力者因负担更重而推迟结婚，这种负向选择影响城市网络的长期可持续性。
This paper explores new roles that traditionally rural kinship networks organized around the marriage institution might play in improving labor market outcomes in urban Africa. Using new data from Kisumu, Kenya, and controlling for selection into marriage, we find that marriage significantly increases employment levels and incomes in our sample of migrants. At the same time, marriage increases the remittances that migrants send to the extended family, consistent with the view that the benefits of the network come with additional social obligations. These obligations appear to be borne disproportionately by high-ability individuals, who consequently defer marriage. The negative selection into marriage that we uncover has consequences for the future viability of the urban networks, with implications for long-term growth and distribution in this economy. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.