“The Brides of Boko Haram: Economic Shocks, Marriage Practices, and Insurgency in Nigeria”, 2022-01-08 (; backlinks):
[cf. et al 2012 against polygyny] Marriage markets in rural Nigeria are characterised by bride price and polygamy. These customs may diminish marriage prospects for young men, causing them to join militant groups.
Using an instrumental variables strategy, I find that marriage inequality increases civil conflict in the Boko Haram insurgency. To generate exogenous shocks to the marriage market, I exploit the fact that young women delay marriage in response to favourable pre-marital economic conditions, which increases marriage inequality primarily in polygamous villages. The same shocks that increase marriage inequality and extremist violence also lead women to marry fewer and richer husbands, generate higher average marriage expenditures, and increase insurgent abductions.
The results shed light on the marriage market as an important driver of violent extremism.
…Interviews with militants suggest that recruitment is driven by poverty and unemployment in northern Nigeria (2014). However, marriage may be a potent force in funneling recruits to Boko Haram. Boko Haram is distinguished from other jihadist groups by its use of mass abductions of schoolgirls, which suggests that controlling large numbers of adolescent girls is strategically important to the group. Boko Haram has explicitly used offers of marriage to attract young men, and bride price emerges as a key concern among young members (Cold-2015; 2017).
Recent qualitative evidence shows that young men in northern Nigeria do in fact join Boko Haram for marriage: women are abducted for this purpose, trained as wives, and men are rewarded for their service with affordable, recognised marriages (2017). Boko Haram is reported to have paid bride prices to families of abducted girls ().