Polygyny, Unmarried Men, and Civil War: Debunking the Popular Demographic Narrative

Hampton Gaddy , LSE
Laura Fortunato, University of Oxford
Rebecca Sear, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)

There is a widespread belief that polygyny squeezes many men permanently out of the marriage market. In turn, polygyny is thought to cause crime and civil war. In response, we examine contemporary census data from 30 countries in Africa and Asia and historical data from the 19th century United States. We find that men living in polygynous communities marry at higher rates than men in comparable monogamous ones. This can be partly explained by how demographic forces shape the sex ratios of polygynous communities, but our empirical finding is better explained by a sociological explanation. Polygynous populations have strong pro-marriage norms, and those norms seem to override polygyny’s effect of skewing the sex ratios of marriage markets, such that more men marry overall. This challenges the political and evolutionary science literature that links mass violence to polygyny, as well as a similar set of beliefs in incel culture.

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 Presented in Session 62. Family Diversity and Wellbeing