A survey on Economic and Cultural Determinants of Marriage Age in Iran: a Cross-Province Study

An undeniable reality of life in modern world is structural changes in the fields of household and marriage. It seems that the main determinant of these changes is social and economic modernization or development. This paper aims to investigate economic and cultural effective factors on marriage age in Iran with a cross province approach. These factors are unemployment, inflation, growth of household's expenditures, income level of each province and education. Findings of a Panel Data Model on 28 Iran provinces during 2004-2014 show that inflation and unemployment have positive significant effects on marriage age. Also, in a specification with the growth of household's expenditures, this variable has similar effect. Education and income level have no significant effects. Based on these findings, to solve a social problem by the name of rising marriage age, betterment of economic situation, in particular declining inflation and unemployment should become policy maker's agendum.