Presentation
This article explores how marriage institutions interact with droughts to shape different migration responses by women and men. The authors construct a retrospective panel using data from the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys of Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) from Malawi over the period 2000 to 2016 combined with meteorological indices of drought. Malawi experienced several drought episodes during this period and the authors compare individuals in similar age groups moving in the same year, some from districts with drought, some from districts without drought, using a quasi-experimental setting. Traditionally, Malawi practices patrilocality under which men pay bride prices to the family of the bride, and the bride moves to the groom’s family. In such a setting a drought could lead to an increase in child marriages and the authors set out to test this hypothesis.