Female Migration for Marriage: Implications from the Land Reform in Rural Tanzania

SummaryUsing the longitudinal household panel data drawn from rural Tanzania (1991–2004), this study investigates impacts of the land reform on women’s marriage-motivated relocation. During the period under study, several villages that initially banned a widow’s land inheritance abolished this discrimination. Taking a differences-in-differences approach, this study finds that the probability of males marrying in a village increased by altering its customary land inheritance rule in favor of widows. In the light of the traditional system favoring exogamous and patrilocal marriage, this finding indicates that females relocate at marriage in response to the favorable land tenure system at the destination.