Household Migration and Adolescent Marriage Choice in Settings with Changing Marriage Systems

This paper examines the relationship between family experiences of migration and adolescents' preferences about who should make the decision about who to marry in two migrant-sending regions. Shifts in parental involvement in spouse choice, like other changes in marriage and family systems, are connected to broader social and economic changes that reduce the centrality of family relationships. Migrant household members may contribute to these changes by reorienting family relationships and interdependencies or by exposing adolescents to new ideas and values. This study uses data collected in Gaza Province, Mozambique and Chitwan Valley, Nepal as part of the Family Migration and Early Life Outcomes (FAMELO) project. Using logistic regression, the authors analyze variation in adolescents' preferences for parental spouse choice by multiple aspects of migration (e.g., timing, reason), controlling for adolescent characteristics and other theoretically relevant predictors. Mozambican adolescents in migrant-sending households were more likely to prefer families choose their spouse than those in households without migration experience. In Nepal, household migration experience was not associated with adolescent spouse-selection preferences. The findings point to how a complex association between migration systems and local family structures may shape adolescents' ideas about family relationships and their family-formation preferences.