The Impacts of the Gender Imbalance on the Marriage Market: Evidence from World War II in Japan

Abstract

This study uses the unprecedented changes in the sex ratio due to the losses of men during World War II to identify the impacts of the gender imbalance on marriage market outcomes in Japan. Using newly digitized census-based historical statistics, we find evidence that men have a stronger bargaining position in the marriage market than women do. Under the conditions of relative male scarcity, women are less likely to marry. Although the entry of younger cohorts with a natural gender balance into the marriage market attenuated its magnitude, this tendency persisted until the mid-1950s. Widowed women facing male scarcity are particularly unable to remarry. Our results suggest that reinstating military pensions in the early 1950s further reduced their incentive to remarry.