Determinants of Marriage

Abstract

The objective of this research is to study the determinants of marriage of Thai population, male and female separately. The study employs panel data of 77 provinces during 2013–2016. The factors that are hypothesized to affect the marriage rates are categorized as follows: (1) demographic factor, i.e., sex ratio; (2) individual economic status, i.e., wage and education; (3) socioeconomic factors, i.e., relative unemployment rate of male to female and poverty incidence; and (4) health factors, i.e., mental health, which is measured by percentages of depressive disorder patients, physical health, which is approximated by percentages of disables, and patients suffering from metabolic syndrome. The results of Hausman test indicate that random effect models are more appropriated for the estimation. The estimation results show that male wage rate, male education, relative unemployment rate, percentages of depressive disorder patients, and regional dummy variables affect male marriage rate. The North and Northeast regions male marriage rates are higher than Central region. The directions of effects of all independent variables, except depressive disorder patient factor, are as hypothesized. In case of the depressive disorder patient factor, the complete data are not available. In case of the determinants of female marriage rate, it is found that sex ratio, relative unemployment rate, percentages of depressive disorder patients, and regional dummy variables affect female marriage rate. The North and Northeast regions female marriage rates are higher than Central region. The directions of their effects, except those of depressive disorder patient factor, are as hypothesized.