Jenna Nobles and Alison
Buttenheim (UCLA)
ABSTRACT
In 1998 a severe, unexpected economic crisis reversed
decades of development in Southeast Asia. Evidence suggests
that the crisis affected many facets of life including labor
participation, education, and migration patterns. We
investigate whether the crisis affected long-term trends in
family formation using data from three national surveys in
Indonesia. We observe increased entry into marriage
immediately after the crisis for both men and women,
suggesting that in a period of substantial uncertainty,
families exploited the resource pooling and insurance
functions of marriage. We also find that women in regions
most affected by the crisis, as measured by expenditure
changes, entered into marriage at a higher rate than those
in less-affected areas.
Key words: marriage, crisis, development, Southeast Asia
