cause and effect essay on lavish spending on wedding

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IELTS sample essay: people now spend a lot of money on their wedding

by Manjusha Nambiar · Published April 23, 2012 · Updated October 21, 2012

Nowadays, people are spending increasingly large amounts of money on their marriage parties. Many people feel large and expensive weddings cause problems for the bride and groom. Do you agree? Use personal examples in your response.

This question was asked on an IELTS writing test held in Dubai on March 2012. It is taken from www.ieltsielts.com

Lavish wedding parties are the norm in many parts of the world. For example, in India parents don’t mind spending large amounts of their hard earned money on their children’s wedding. In fact, Indian parents start planning and saving for their daughter’s wedding from the day she is born.

In the Middle East, where arranged marriages are common, the cost of wedding is borne by the entire family. In the west, where arranged marriages are uncommon, the bride and the groom bear the cost of wedding. In any case, insane amounts of money are being spent on weddings. Expensive weddings cause problems not only for the bride and the groom but also for their families. Does that mean every marrying couple should opt for simple wedding ceremonies? Well, let’s see.

There is no denying the fact that a wedding is an occasion to celebrate. After all, it happens just once in a lifetime. The problem arises when people opt for weddings that they cannot afford. Spending borrowed money on a wedding is definitely not a wise idea. It will unnecessarily put a financial burden of the new couple even before they start their life together. Worse still, in India where dowry is a huge social problem many parents don’t prefer having a girl child because they cannot afford to pay huge amounts of dowry. In worst cases, it even leads to female infanticide. Parents abort a girl child even before she is born because they don’t want to spend millions of money on her wedding when she grows up.

After analyzing the situation, it is not hard to see that lavish weddings do more harm than good. While marrying couples should be allowed to choose the kind of wedding they should have, they should be under no compulsion to throw lavish parties that they cannot afford.

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Manjusha Nambiar

Hi, I'm Manjusha. This is my blog where I give IELTS preparation tips.

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Writing Task 2: Spending money on weddings.

Writing task 2.

You should spend 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Some people spend a lot of money for their wedding ceremonies. However, others feel like it is unnecessary to spend a lot.

Discuss both view points and give your own opinion..

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant example from your own knowledge or experience.

Sample Answer

A weddings signifies the culture and traditions of a country. In the past few years, the wedding industry has marked a remarkable growth worldwide. Certainly, a wedding is not an unvoiced affair, but a magniloquent event. Some people believe that spending freely and lavishly on weddings is acceptable whereas, others think that it is not required at all. I will discuss about both the views in my essay.

On one hand, Indian weddings have a great contribution in generating employment. As wedding industry requires the services of other segments also like hospitality, catering, apparels, decoration and makeup etc. Additionally, an expansion of wedding industry indicates a substantial growth in other service sectors as well. What is more, marriage is once in a lifetime event. Therefore, people spend lavishly to make it a special and memorable moment. These weddings bring all family members, friends and relatives at one place. So, they get an opportunity to spend some quality time together with lots of fun and enjoyment.

On the other hand, predominantly, a tradition of grand marriages puts a burden on the people who are not affluent financially. People not only spend their lifelong savings on these weddings but also borrow lofty loans just to impress the society. In addition, varieties of cuisines are prepared and served to the guests. Many times a large portion of food remains unconsumed and is wasted eventually. This money can otherwise be invested and utilised for other productive endeavours.

To conclude, wedding is the most pious and auspicious ceremony in our life. It has lately become a subject of reputation and pride. In my opinion, in spite of spending money carelessly on these magnificent weddings, tying a knot should be a simple and private affair.

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How to Survive a Lavish Wedding

cause and effect essay on lavish spending on wedding

By Jen Doll

July 20, 2017

Like many a human who has reached a certain age, I’ve spent a lot of my adult life going to weddings.

They’ve ranged from a beach in the Dominican Republic to City Hall to the traditionally formal evening event, complete with passed canapés, ice sculptures and sequined gowns. Before one of those ornate affairs, my date arrived clad in black jeans to pick me up. I spent most of the night feeling self-conscious that I’d brought along a guy who was less dressed up than the kitchen staff.

As I would eventually learn, one of the key ways to survive a lavish wedding is to let the embarrassing moments slide off you like good caviar. Don’t keep apologizing to people. It only draws attention to the gaffe, and anyway, the sartorial choices of you and your date aren’t the point of the wedding.

Start With the Invite

“We’re fortunate, we live in an information age, so anything you need to know is relatively easy to find out,” said Daniel Post Senning, a co-host of the Awesome Etiquette podcast and the great-great grandson of the famed etiquette author Emily Post. “The invitation is designed to tell you a lot. Is there a reception? Is there a reply card included? What’s the formality? Once upon a time invitations featured coded language: For instance, requesting ‘the honor of your presence’ versus ‘the favor of your company’ told you whether it would be held in a place of worship versus a home,” he said. “Or the use of the word ‘and’ versus the word ‘to,’ that is, “the marriage of someone and someone versus someone to someone.” The first indicates a Jewish wedding; the second a Christian one.

Know What to Wear

The invitation will also help you get dressed, said Shawn Rabideau, a wedding planning expert, of Shawn Rabideau Events & Design . First, check the dress code; it should appear in the lower-right corner of the invite or on a reception card.

“White tie is fancier than black tie; it’s a black tailcoat over a white starched shirt for men,” he explained. “A woman could get away with a beautiful ball gown for either.” If the wedding is indoors and after 6:30 p.m., it’s a fair bet that it’s black tie. If it’s an outdoor wedding, “Chances are you’ll be in the grass,” Mr. Rabideau noted. “Ladies, wear your heel protectors.” An outdoor wedding lends a little leeway in terms of attire: A linen or lighter-weight suit for men can be appropriate, and people might experiment with hat size a bit more, Mr. Post Senning said.

“If you’re friends with the family, ask what their colors are,” Mr. Rabideau instructed. A no-no would be matching the wedding party. “And don’t wear something too revealing. If you’re questioning, ‘Is this too much?’ then it probably is. If you find something elegant that fits the black-tie bill and you have nice shoes that are comfortable, you will fit in. You don’t need to spend thousands.”

Have Fun With Fancy

“A concept that I love is that when things get really formal, they sometimes get a little playful,” Mr. Post Senning told me. “The most formal shoes you can pair with a tux are velvet slippers.” Or consider the increasingly ornate and occasionally kooky hats seen on women at British royal weddings. “There’s a certain casual comfort and familiarity at the extremes of formality that are easy to forget about,” he said. “To have fun in that and play is part of enjoying it.”

When in Doubt, Ask

Anne Szustek, who has attended more than a dozen “white-tie optional” weddings, recommended asking “the person doing the inviting — the couple or the person bringing you as a plus-one — to get an idea and follow their lead” in terms of what to wear. (It’s totally fine to ask this and other questions of formality, Mr. Post Senning said.)

Ms. Szustek added that looking at wedding-focused media that center on the high end of things can be instructive. “Town & Country’s wedding section is the gold standard on this front,” Ms. Szustek said, referring to the lifestyle magazine.

“You can always call with a clarifying question about attire. Or food, especially if you have an allergy. The sooner the better,” Mr. Post Senning said. “You might say: ‘My spouse and I have dietary restrictions. Would it be O.K. if I spoke to your planner about that?’” Mr. Rabideau suggested. “Then it doesn’t become the bride’s problem.”

Pay Attention to the Couple, and Their Parents

It’s only polite, but there’s strategy to it.

“We went to a wedding in the English countryside, and the hat etiquette is that the mother of the bride dictates when all the ladies are able to remove their hats,” said Claire Mickelborough, an American who lived in London for nine years. “Two girls at my table took their hats off, and they were tapped on the shoulder by said mother of bride and told to put them back on until she chose when the time was right.”

Mortifying, and completely avoidable.

“If the bride and the mother of the bride are taking their shoes off, it’s O.K. for you to do the same,” Mr. Rabideau said. “If the groom or father of the bride takes their jacket off or loosens their tie, you can do so as well. Until that happens, you have to suck it up.”

Don’t Freak About Money

Mr. Post Senning advises guests to “know what your budget is and stick with it” with regard to the wedding you’re attending. Don’t spend more than you can comfortably afford on travel, gifts, attire and so on. (The same goes for the couple throwing the party.) He also enthusiastically debunked the idea that a gift should be the equivalent of the dinner you’re served. “It’s not an exchange,” he said. Nor should you compare yourself with others and what they might give. “It’s the thought that counts,” he said. “It’s about the relationship and wanting to reciprocate.”

Do bring a gift, however — that’s customary. “ Everybody has different budgets and price points,” Mr. Rabideau added. “If you are a guest, don’t feel the pressure to purchase the most lavish gift. Purchase something that will be memorable.”

Remember the Etiquette Basics

Mr. Post Senning laid out a few “minimums for no matter the wedding” for guests: R.S.V.P. in a timely manner with enough information. (Some indication of the form the reply should take should be part of the invitation.) Having accepted, show up on time: “Five to 10 minutes is great, 20 for a cushion, but you don’t want to become a burden and show up too early.” Then, “be prepared to enjoy yourself. It’s not enough to just drag your carcass there.”

From that, act like the gentle human you are. “One faux pas as a guest is walking up to anyone who is hosting and saying, ‘Wow, this must have cost you a lot of money.’ I’ve heard people say this!” Mr. Rabideau said. “If the food doesn’t come out exactly to your liking, if the coffee service isn’t fast enough, if the room is too cold or hot, keep your mouth shut.”

In that vein, don’t go around taking a ton of selfies. Do spend time observing everyone else and your surroundings. Don’t upstage the bride and groom. Don’t wear white. If celebrities are there, don’t ask for autographs. Do work from the outside in with your silverware. Above all, remember that you’re not the focus, and you should be fine.

Enjoy Yourself

In 2015, Jennifer Wright wrote an article for Town & Country about attending the wedding of her friend Katalina Sharkey De Solis to Ashley Hicks, Prince Philip’s godson. The event was held at the couple’s country estate and featured guests like Christian Louboutin and Giles Deacon. Lavish, sure, but “in a lot of ways it was also just the most laid-back wedding I’ve ever been to,” Ms. Wright told me. “I don’t recall there even being a dress code, except the kind you might be inclined to impose on yourself if you know Vogue staffers are showing up. They served pizza from a tent out back. It could have been in someone’s backyard, except it was on an estate.” It was also “the most fun wedding I’ve ever been to,” she said.

Lavish doesn’t have to mean old-school, black-tie events at New York institutions, with caviar ladled out with gold spoons by men in white. It doesn’t have to mean scary, either. And, really, you can take heart in the fact that there simply aren’t that many of them.

“The lavish weddings are probably 1 to 2 percent of the weddings that take place,” Mr. Rabideau said. If you’re invited to one, “pinch yourself,” Mr. Post Senning said. “Enjoy a Champagne that’s expensive, try the caviar, enjoy the views and the experience. It can be a real treat.”

Update July 27, 2017:

An earlier version of this article included a quotation from a wedding planning expert that referred incorrectly to attire at white-tie weddings. While it can include a white jacket in some regions, the more common attire would include a black tailcoat over a white starched shirt.

Jen Doll is the author of “Save the Date: The Occasional Mortifications of a Serial Wedding Guest.”

Weddings Trends and Ideas

Keeping Friendships Intact: The soon-to-be-married couple and their closest friends might experience stress and even tension leading up to their nuptials. Here’s how to avoid a friendship breakup .

‘Edible Haute Couture’: Bastien Blanc-Tailleur, a luxury cake designer based in Paris, creates opulent confections for high-profile clients , including European royalty and American socialites.

Reinventing a Mexican Tradition: Mariachi, a soundtrack for celebration in Mexico, offers a way for couples to honor their heritage at their weddings.

Something Thrifted: Focused on recycled clothing , some brides are finding their wedding attire on vintage sites and at resale stores.

Brand Your Love Story: Some couples are going above and beyond to personalize their weddings, with bespoke party favors and custom experiences for guests .

Going to Great Lengths : Mega wedding cakes are momentous for reasons beyond their size — they are part of an emerging trend of extremely long cakes .

Essay Papers Writing Online

How to master the art of writing a successful cause and effect essay that captivates your readers and earns you top grades.

Are you intrigued by the interconnected nature of events and phenomena? Do you aspire to unravel the hidden threads that link causes to effects? Crafting a cause and outcome essay provides an excellent platform to explore and dissect these connections, allowing you to showcase your analytical skills and express your ideas with precision and clarity.

In this comprehensive guide, we will delve deep into the art of writing cause and outcome essays, equipping you with effective strategies, invaluable tips, and real-life examples that will help you master the craft. Whether you are a seasoned writer looking to enhance your skills or a beginner eager to embark on a new writing journey, this guide has got you covered.

Throughout this journey, we will navigate the intricate realm of cause and outcome relationships, examining how actions, events, and circumstances influence one another. We will explore the essential elements of a cause and outcome essay, honing in on the importance of a strong thesis statement, logical organization, and compelling evidence. By the end of this guide, you will possess the necessary tools to produce a captivating cause and outcome essay that engages your readers and leaves a lasting impact.

Tips for Writing a Cause and Effect Essay

When composing a paper that focuses on exploring the connections between actions and their consequences, there are several essential tips that can help you write a compelling cause and effect essay. By following these guidelines, you can ensure that your essay is well-structured, clear, and effectively communicates your ideas.

By following these tips, you can enhance your ability to write a compelling cause and effect essay. Remember to analyze the causes and effects carefully, organize your ideas effectively, provide clear explanations, use transitional words, and proofread your essay to ensure a polished final piece of writing.

Understand the Purpose and Structure

One of the most important aspects of writing a cause and effect essay is understanding its purpose and structure. By understanding these key elements, you can effectively communicate the relationship between causes and effects, and present your argument in a clear and organized manner.

In a cause and effect essay, the purpose is to analyze the causes of a specific event or phenomenon and explain the effects that result from those causes. This type of essay is often used to explore the connections between different factors and to demonstrate how one event leads to another.

To structure your cause and effect essay, consider using a chronological or sequential order. Start by introducing the topic and providing some background information on the causes you will discuss. Then, present your thesis statement, which should clearly state your main argument or claim.

In the body paragraphs, discuss each cause or group of causes in a separate paragraph. Provide detailed explanations, examples, and evidence to support your claims. Make sure to use transitional words and phrases to guide the reader through your essay and to show the logical progression of causes and effects.

Finally, in the conclusion, summarize your main points and restate your thesis, reinforcing your overall argument. You can also discuss the broader implications of your analysis and suggest possible solutions or further research.

By understanding the purpose and structure of a cause and effect essay, you can effectively convey your ideas and arguments to your readers. This will help them follow your reasoning and see the connections between causes and effects, leading to a more convincing and impactful essay.

Choose a Topic

When embarking on the journey of writing a cause and effect essay, one of the first steps is to choose an engaging and relevant topic. The topic sets the foundation for the entire essay, determining the direction and scope of the content.

To select an effective topic, it is important to consider your interests, as well as the interests of your intended audience. Think about subjects that captivate you and inspire curiosity. Consider current events, personal experiences, or areas of study that pique your interest. By choosing a topic that you are genuinely passionate about, you will be more motivated to conduct thorough research and present compelling arguments.

Additionally, it is essential to select a topic that is relevant and meaningful. Identify an issue or phenomenon that has a clear cause-and-effect relationship, allowing you to explore the connections and consequences in depth. Look for topics that are timely and impactful, as this will ensure that your essay resonates with readers and addresses significant issues in society.

Moreover, a well-chosen topic should have enough depth and breadth to support a comprehensive analysis. Avoid selecting topics that are too broad or shallow, as this can make it challenging to delve into the causes and effects in a meaningful way. Narrow down your focus to a specific aspect or aspect of a broader topic to ensure that you have enough material to explore and analyze.

In conclusion, choosing a topic for your cause and effect essay is a critical step that will shape the entire writing process. By selecting a topic that aligns with your interests, is relevant and meaningful, and has enough depth and breadth, you will lay the foundation for a compelling and informative essay.

Conduct Thorough Research

Before diving into writing a cause and effect essay, it is essential to conduct a comprehensive research on the topic of your choice. This research phase will provide you with the necessary background information and context to develop a strong and well-supported essay.

During the research process, explore various sources such as books, academic journals, reputable websites, and credible news articles. Utilize synonyms for “research” like “investigate” or “explore” to keep your writing engaging and varied.

Avoid relying solely on a single source or biased information. Instead, strive to gather a variety of perspectives and data points that will enhance the credibility and validity of your essay.

Take notes as you research, highlighting key points, statistics, and quotes that you may want to include in your essay. Organize your findings in a clear and structured manner, making it easier to refer back to them as you begin writing.

Incorporating well-researched evidence and supporting examples into your cause and effect essay will lend credibility to your arguments, making them more persuasive and convincing. By conducting thorough research, you will be able to present a well-rounded and informed analysis of the topic you are writing about.

Create an Outline

One of the crucial steps in writing any type of essay, including cause and effect essays, is creating an outline. An outline helps to organize your thoughts and ideas before you start writing, ensuring that your essay has a clear and logical structure. In this section, we will discuss the importance of creating an outline and provide some tips on how to create an effective outline for your cause and effect essay.

When creating an outline, it is important to start with a clear understanding of the purpose and main points of your essay. Begin by identifying the main cause or event that you will be discussing, as well as its effects or consequences. This will serve as the foundation for your outline, allowing you to structure your essay in a logical and coherent manner.

Once you have identified the main cause and effects, it is time to organize your ideas into a clear and logical order. One effective way to do this is by using a table. Create a table with two columns, one for the cause and one for the effect. Then, list the main causes and effects in each column, using bullet points or short phrases. This will help you see the connections between the different causes and effects, making it easier to write your essay.

In addition to listing the main causes and effects, it is also important to include supporting details and examples in your outline. These can help to strengthen your argument and provide evidence for your claims. Include specific examples, facts, and statistics that support each cause and effect, and organize them under the relevant point in your outline.

Lastly, make sure to review and revise your outline before you start writing your essay. Check for any gaps in your logic or missing information, and make any necessary adjustments. Your outline should serve as a roadmap for your essay, guiding you through the writing process and ensuring that your essay is well-structured and coherent.

In conclusion, creating an outline is an essential step in writing a cause and effect essay. It helps to organize your thoughts and ideas, ensuring that your essay has a clear and logical structure. By identifying the main cause and effects, organizing your ideas into a table, including supporting details and examples, and reviewing your outline, you can create an effective outline that will guide you through the writing process.

Develop the Body Paragraphs

Once you have identified the main causes and effects of the topic you are writing about, it is time to develop your body paragraphs. In these paragraphs, you will present specific evidence and examples to support your claims. The body of your essay should be well-structured and focused, with each paragraph addressing a single cause or effect.

Start each body paragraph with a topic sentence that clearly states the main point you will be discussing. Then, provide detailed explanations and evidence to support your argument. This can include statistics, research findings, expert opinions, or personal anecdotes. Remember to use clear and concise language to convey your ideas effectively.

In order to make your writing more coherent, you can use transition words and phrases to connect your ideas and create a logical flow between paragraphs. Words like “because”, “as a result”, “therefore”, and “consequently” can be used to show cause and effect relationships.

Additionally, it is important to use paragraph unity, which means that each paragraph should focus on a single cause or effect. Avoid including unrelated information or discussing multiple causes/effects in a single paragraph, as this can confuse the reader and weaken your argument.

Furthermore, consider using examples and evidence to enhance the clarity and persuasiveness of your arguments. Concrete examples and real-life scenarios can help illustrate the cause and effect relationship and make your writing more engaging to the reader.

Use accurate data and precise details to back up your claims
Include relevant research and studies to support your arguments
Provide real-life examples and cases that demonstrate the cause and effect relationship

In conclusion, developing the body paragraphs of your cause and effect essay is crucial in presenting a well-structured and persuasive argument. By using topic sentences, clear explanations, transition words, and relevant evidence, you can effectively convey your ideas and convince the reader of the cause and effect relationship you are discussing.

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The financial burden of weddings on India’s poorest families

A culture of extravagance and exploitative practices force brides’ families to spend beyond their means – but change could be under way.

New Delhi, India – New Delhi-based schoolteacher Sunita Sharma was very excited about her wedding in November 2019 to her neighbour, an electrician. The 26-year-old had saved up $2,000 from her monthly salary of $200 for the wedding expenses.

But that was not enough. Her mother also had to sell off the family’s small piece of land to buy her only daughter a trousseau – furniture, a television and a refrigerator. The rest of the money went into booking a small wedding hall, hiring a local music band and catering for a party of 200 guests.

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However, a last-minute demand from her fiancé’s father sent the Sharmas into a panic. He wanted his son to be given a car as well. Sunita pleaded that a car would be out of their budget as they had already exhausted all their funds. Besides, her father had died when she was 19 and so, as the oldest of four, she had worked very hard to feed her family.

But the groom’s family would have none of it. “My fiancé said that if the wedding was to be formalised, the car’s precondition would have to be met. Ultimately, the wedding was called off,” says Sunita.

Though she has since married and moved on, Sharma’s harrowing experience mirrors that of millions of Indians, and it is a plight that affects poor and lower-middle-class families most severely.

The Indian wedding – colourful and cacophonous – is an occasion often marked by hundreds, if not thousands, of guests, lavish banquets and venues and brides and grooms kitted out in eye-popping costumes and jewellery. Some 10 million weddings take place each year in a market worth $50bn. But the occasion also puts enormous social pressure on the bride’s family to spend vast sums of money in order to fulfil the demands of the groom’s family and impress relatives.

Failure to do so can have ramifications. The marriage may be called off, or the family may end up borrowing from informal moneylenders, a common practice as many in India still rely on cash and not bank transactions . These loans can come at an astronomical interest rate, indebting the family for life. Weddings that have been called off have driven brides and their parents to commit suicide due to fear of social opprobrium. Harassment over dowry – money and other goods demanded by the groom’s family – a practice that is officially illegal but still continues, can lead to deaths and suicides.

The weddings of the wealthy, the trappings of social tradition and the entrenched practice of dowry put immense pressure on lower-middle-class and poor families. But some social initiatives are hoping to change that.

A culture of extravagance

The high-profile nuptials of the rich and famous set impossibly high standards for the middle classes and the poor to emulate, triggering unnecessary social pressures, according to Dr Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, a New Delhi-based think-tank.

In 2018, the wedding of Isha Ambani, the daughter of Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, cost a rumoured $100m. The multiple-destination celebration starring guests like Hillary Clinton and Beyonce dominated national news for days.

The five-day 2016 nuptials of the daughter of mining baron and politician Gali Janardhana Reddy at an estimated cost of $74m had gold-plated invitation cards, 50,000 guests and samba dancers flown in from Brazil. In 2004, for the $60m, week-long marriage of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal’s daughter Vanisha to London-based investment banker Amit Bhatia, about 1,000 guests, including Bollywood stars, were flown to France. The festivities included an Eiffel Tower fireworks display and a private show by Kylie Minogue.

Such extravagance, according to Kumari, seems especially misplaced in a country where millions of people go hungry. India ranks 94th out of the 107 assessed countries on the 2020 Global Hunger Index with a level of hunger that is categorised as “serious”. According to the Index, 14 percent of Indians are undernourished and 34.7 percent of children under the age of five are stunted.

High wedding expenditure also seems incongruous in a country ridden with glaring societal inequities. Today, the wealthiest 1 percent hold four times the wealth held by the poorest 70 percent of the population, or 953 million people, according to an Oxfam report.

In recent years, lawmakers have tried to curb excessive wedding spending and the pressure this places on underprivileged families.

In 2017, the Marriages (Compulsory Registration and Prevention of Wasteful Expenditure) Bill was introduced in parliament, proposing that families who spend more than 5 lakh (about US$7,000) on a wedding must donate 10 percent of the overall cost of the weddings to brides from poor families.

Bollywood’s influence

In an iniquitous social setting such as India’s, the role of Bollywood or the Hindi film industry in creating pressure to overspend on weddings cannot be ignored, say observers. “In Indian movies, wedding functions are highly glamourised events with fancy attires, and song and dance sequences in scenic locales. As cinema has a powerful hold over the mind of the masses, such depiction creates an aspiration among all classes of youth to mimic such splendour at their own weddings too,” says Kumari.

The proliferation of international global fashion chains in second and third-tier Indian cities is further creating newer avenues for consumption at weddings among all classes, say some.

“Everybody is into designer merchandise these days,” says Pratibha Chahal, a Mumbai-based sociologist. “Add to it the trend of hiring wedding planners, stylists, florists and multiple vendors for weddings and you have a toxic cocktail which has added so many unwanted layers to an Indian wedding today. All this expense pushes up cost dramatically.”

This level of consumption was not prevalent earlier, says Chalal, referring to the decades prior to the 1970s, which is when weddings started to evolve. Back then, weddings were largely family affairs and everyone pitched in to cook, decorate the house and handle all functions themselves, she says.

“Indian weddings are more about showing off one’s wealth and status and not really about the institution,” says Veena Trikha, 55, a schoolteacher whose son married last year. “It puts middle-class families under tremendous social pressure to spend more, perpetuating a culture of overconsumption. The perception of what society thinks about us always drives our thinking.”

An obsession with gold ornaments, also considered auspicious, is another factor contributing to overspending. “Indians are known to mortgage properties, take as many personal loans as they can afford or beg and borrow just to ensure that there’s enough display of gold at a wedding. In certain regions, people explicitly demand gold as dowry in the name of ancestral tradition. Even the poorest of parents will try to give at least one gold chain to their daughter to save face,” adds Kumari.

Unsurprisingly, India is the world’s second-largest consumer of gold, buying nearly 700 tonnes in 2019. More than half of this demand can be attributed to bridal jewellery, according to Chahal.

‘Girls are reduced to all about being married off’

Beyond the influence of unrealistic weddings, one of the grimmest aspects of a culture of overconsumption is the social malaise of the dowry. Dowries can include cash, real estate, cars, jewellery and other material items.

Middle-class and poor families often start planning for their daughter’s marriage from the time she is born.

According to Sunita, whose family faced crippling dowry demands, girls are considered a “curse” for poor families because parents see them as a burden due to the wedding expenses involved in their marriage. “Girls are reduced to all about being married off,” she says. “Her education, her career, her happiness – everything takes a back seat in front of her marriage.”

“Marrying off a daughter is an onerous responsibility in our section of society; there’s nothing joyous about it,” says Rani Devi, 56, a small-hold farmer from Hardoi district of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh whose daughter Shanti, 21, was recently married to a man from a neighbouring village.

Devi says that as her son-in-law had a bachelor’s degree, his family demanded a motorcycle and a gold chain for the groom for which she had to borrow about $1,000 from her relatives.

“As a widow, I requested the boy’s family to settle for a simple ceremony at a local temple, but he refused. His family said it was a matter of social status for them that their only son have an elaborate wedding. We had to pay for all the groom’s wedding arrangements too,” she says.

As girls are often seen as a financial liability, wedding expenses related to their nuptials could also be one of the reasons for the country’s skewed sex ratio, say experts.

India’s current gender ratio (112 males/100 females) is driven by a parental preference for sons that leads to sex-selective abortion practices and gender imbalances, according to Delhi-based obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Samriddhi Kakkar.

“The son is seen as an investment in the future; as someone who will take care of old parents, unlike daughters who marry and leave the home. So a premium is placed on the son’s birth. As dowry is invariably involved in a daughter’s wedding, she is seen as a liability,” says Kakkar.

“In India, men have a rate card,” explains New Delhi-based civil rights layer Shashikala Kandhari.

“Those with better education or secure government jobs have greater brand value in the matrimonial market. And that worth is assessed by the amount of dowry – in cash or kind – they will get upon marriage from the bride’s family. In India’s patriarchal society, men have always been valued over women and the practice of dowry is an offshoot of that retrogressive mindset,” says Kandhari.

Dowry exploitation

Despite economic progress, this heinous custom of dowry still flourishes in India across all levels of society, making women vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

According to Kandhari, the practice exists despite comprehensive legal provisions. Under the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, both giving and accepting dowry in India is an offence and the punishment for violating it is at least five years of imprisonment, and a fine of either $200 or the value of the dowry given, whichever is higher.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, every hour an Indian woman is driven to suicide or is murdered over dowry. Every four minutes, a woman faces cruelty from her in-laws or husband. In December last year, a 27-year-old woman set her house on fire and then jumped into the blaze with her two sons in a village in the state of Rajasthan. She was allegedly harassed for dowry by her husband and his family.

In another case reported in Bengaluru in early 2020, a husband demanded cash a few weeks after marriage despite receiving a kilogramme of gold in dowry as per his demands. When his wife refused, he burned her alive.

“In 1983, Sections 304B and 498A of the Indian Penal Code were also enacted to prohibit cruelty by husband or his relatives towards a woman,” says Kandhari, the lawyer. These sections are intended to help women seek redressal for cruelty and harassment. In the case of a woman’s death, prison sentences can be extended for life.

However, due to poor implementation of the law, most dowry cases take years to be resolved. Backlogs in courts and a lack of solid evidence to prove that dowry was demanded means the perpetrators are rarely convicted, according to Kandhari. Between 2006 and 2016, only one of every seven cases ended in a conviction, with five resulting in an acquittal and one being withdrawn, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

Debt bondage

According to research by Pragati Gramodyog Evam Samaj Kalyan Sansthan (PGS), a pan-India non-profit that focuses on the intergenerational slavery of marginalised communities, more than 60 percent of Indian families turn to money lenders to borrow funds for wedding ceremonies.

“We have come across hundreds of cases in our fieldwork where marriage expenses have pushed poor families to slavery,” says Subedar Singh, media coordinator at PGS. “Loans to cover wedding costs come with impossibly high interest rates, causing many families to fall into bondage to pay off the debt. Indebtedness in rural India is very high due to high expenditure on two social occasions – wedding and death ceremonies. The culture (of expensive ceremonies) is so entrenched in rural communities that it makes thousands of poor fall into debt bondage.”

PGS cofounder Jyoti Singh, whose late husband Sunit Singh launched the organisation in 1986, says that with social pressures at work, even the poorest families have to stretch themselves financially to organise weddings that are beyond their means.

“If they don’t, fingers are pointed at them. Some are even ostracised or their daughters tortured till the parents capitulate to the groom’s demands. In some Indian villages, the groom’s family typically asks the bride’s family to cover the entire cost of the wedding in addition to giving cash or other gifts. Lack of education, poverty, and patriarchy exacerbate these pressures,” adds the activist.

Singh adds that as many poor Indians do not have bank accounts, or often do not use them, they invariably turn to upper-caste moneylenders when they require large sums of money for their weddings. “They are rarely able to repay these debts because moneylenders impose annual interest rates of over 100 percent. As a result, poor families are often forced to become bonded labourers, slaving up to 18 hours in brick kilns, rice mills, construction sites, mines or steel factories,” she adds.

Law enforcement is virtually non-existent due to a thriving landowner-police-politician nexus, according to Subedar Singh, which precludes investigations into debt bondage. “When cases actually make their way to court, a judiciary overburdened with a backlog of cases and the ignorance of the poor about the intricacies of law leads to traffickers’ acquittals,” he says.

Winds of change

Notwithstanding the culture of extravagance and the social malaises linked with Indian weddings, change is under way. Civil society organisations and individuals are stepping in to strike at the roots of customs that push families into elaborate weddings.

To combat debt bondage, PGS for the past seven years has organised group weddings for couples whose families are at risk of slavery. The ceremonies are kept simple and guests limited to 50 from each side to prevent the families from accruing crippling debt. “Instead of about $1,000 – the amount a typical wedding in these areas (rural northern India) usually costs – each family only pays only $15 for the ceremony so that they don’t fall into debt. Our network of donors pitch in to help as well,” explains Jyoti Singh.

These events encourage the families to invest any money they have saved in small businesses, buying cattle or sending their children to school, adds the activist, and show others an alternative way for weddings to be done.

Kiku Ram and Rani Kumar, both 26 and farmers in Noida, Uttar Pradesh were married at one such event last year. “I’d never imagined that my wedding would be a happy occasion incurring no financial burden on my parents. Throughout my childhood I was witness to my parents worrying about my marriage expenses. But my community wedding solved all their problems,” says Rani. “I wish every girl in society could marry like this.”

According to Suresh Kumar Goyal, coordinator for Narayan Seva Sansthan, a non-profit that organises mass weddings across India for underprivileged and physically disabled people, such weddings send out the right social message – that marriages ought to be joyous occasions and free of any kind of burden.

Launched in 1985, the non-profit organises two community weddings every year for 51 couples in different parts of the country. “All expenses for the nuptial ceremonies are borne by our organisation and our donors. All these families belong to the lowest rung of society and are financially incapable of formalising their own weddings,” says Goyal.

Kanyadaan India Foundation, another pan-India non-profit, was similarly set up to help poor families marry their daughters off in a dignified way. “We try to support the girl and her family by bearing all expenses of the wedding so that dowry and suicide due to lack of funds for marriages do not happen,” says the organisation’s spokesperson.

#Notobigfatwedding

Individual efforts are also targeting patriarchal and established wedding conventions. Hammad Rahman, CEO of Muslim matrimonial website Nikah Forever, has launched the #Notobigfatwedding campaign to popularise sustainable and minimalist weddings, cautioning people to not overspend.

The campaign has garnered more than a million signatures from the public over the past year. Rahman’s message is particularly pertinent as the coronavirus has forced people across different segments of society to opt for simpler weddings.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Nikah Forever (@nikahforever)

“We aim to promote this idea among youngsters. This is the ideal time to make people realise that we should reject useless traditions that encourage pompous weddings. It’s great to see people adjusting their wedding expenditure even if it is due to the COVID-19 threat. Our campaign aims to remind the world that weddings are the union of two souls rather than a trade-off between wealth and status,” elaborates Rahman.

Smita Gupta, a wedding planner, has seen people shying away from excessive spending due to the pandemic and believes this pattern could be here to stay. “It is clear that the industry will look very different post-pandemic.”

As the wider wedding culture faces a shift, experts feel that, apart from private initiatives, the government too needs to step in to organise mass sensitisation campaigns that educate the public about the ills of dowry, debt bondage related to marriages and the need to have simple weddings.

Better education can empower women to stand up and challenge illegal practices like dowry while helping men fight the pressures dictating that they conform to such social norms, says Kumari.

“Increasing government transparency regarding the investigation and prosecution of exploitative moneylenders and establishment of fast-track courts that address debt bondage are also critical to strike at the roots of irrelevant social customs that cripple the poor,” says Kandhari.

Cause and Effect Essay Outline: Types, Examples and Writing Tips

20 June, 2020

9 minutes read

Author: Tomas White

This is a complete guide on writing cause and effect essays. Find a link to our essay sample at the end. Let's get started!

What is a Cause and Effect Essay?

A cause and effect essay is the type of paper that the author is using to analyze the causes and effects of a particular action or event. A curriculum usually includes this type of exercise to test your ability to understand the logic of certain events or actions.

If you can see the logic behind cause and effect in the world around you, you will encounter fewer problems when writing. If not, writing this kind of paper will give you the chance to improve your skillset and your brain’s ability to reason.

“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

In this article, the Handmade Writing team will find out how to create an outline for your cause and effect essay – the key to successful essay writing.

Types of the Cause and Effect Essay

Before writing this kind of essay, you need to draft the structure. A good structure will result in a good paper, so it’s important to have a plan before you start. But remember , there’s no need to reinvent the wheel: just about every type of structure has already been formulated by someone.

If you are still unsure about the definition of an essay, you can take a look at our guide: What is an Essay?

Generally speaking, there are three types of cause and effect essays. We usually differentiate them by the number of and relationships between the different causes and the effects. Let’s take a quick look at these three different cases:

1. Many causes, one effect

This kind of essay illustrates how different causes can lead to one effect. The idea here is to try and examine a variety of causes, preferably ones that come from different fields, and prove how they contributed to a particular effect. If you are writing about World War I, for example, mention the political, cultural, and historical factors that led to the great war.

By examining a range of fundamental causes, you will be able to demonstrate your knowledge about the topic.

Here is how to structure this type of essay:

Introduction
Cause #3 (and so on…)
The effect of the causes

2. One cause, many effects

This type of cause and effect essay is constructed to show the various effects of a particular event, problem, or decision. Once again, you will have to demonstrate your comprehensive knowledge and analytical mastery of the field. There is no need to persuade the reader or present your argument . When writing this kind of essay, in-depth knowledge of the problem or event’s roots will be of great benefit. If you know why it happened, it will be much easier to write about its effects.

Here is the structure for this kind of essay:

Effect #3 (and so on…)

3. Chain of causes and effects

This is the most challenging type. You need to maintain a chain of logic that demonstrates a sequence of actions and consequences, leading to the end of the chain. Although this is usually the most interesting kind of cause and effect essay, it can also be the most difficult to write.

Here is the outline structure:

Effect #1 = Cause #2
Effect #2 = Cause #3
Effect #3 = Cause #4 (and so on…)

Cause and Effect Essay Outline Example

Let’s take a look at an example. Below, you will find an outline for the topic “The causes of obesity” (Type 1) :

As you can see, we used a blended strategy here. When writing about the ever-increasing consumption of unhealthy food, it is logical to talk about the marketing strategies that encourage people to buy fast food. If you are discussing fitness trainers, it is important to mention that people need to be checked by a doctor more often, etc.

In case you face some issues with writing your Cause and Effect essay, you can always count on our Essay Writers !

How do I start writing once I have drafted the structure?

If you start by structuring each paragraph and collecting suitable examples, the writing process will be much simpler. The final essay might not come up as a classic five paragraph essay – it all depends on the cause-effect chain and the number of statements of your essay.

In the Introduction, try to give the reader a general idea of what the cause and effect essay will contain. For an experienced reader, a thesis statement will be an indication that you know what you are writing about. It is also important to emphasize how and why this problem is relevant to modern life. If you ever need to write about the Caribbean crisis, for instance, state that the effects of the Cold War are still apparent in contemporary global politics.

Related Post: How to write an Essay introduction | How to write a Thesis statement

In the Body, provide plenty of details about what causes led to the effects. Once again, if you have already assembled all the causes and effects with their relevant examples when writing your plan, you shouldn’t have any problems. But, there are some things to which you must pay particular attention. To begin with, try to make each paragraph the same length: it looks better visually. Then, try to avoid weak or unconvincing causes. This is a common mistake, and the reader will quickly realize that you are just trying to write enough characters to reach the required word count.

Moreover, you need to make sure that your causes are actually linked to their effects. This is particularly important when you write a “chained” cause and effect essay (type 3) . You need to be able to demonstrate that each cause was actually relevant to the final result. As I mentioned before, writing the Body without preparing a thorough and logical outline is often an omission.

The Conclusion must be a summary of the thesis statement that you proposed in the Introduction. An effective Conclusion means that you have a well-developed understanding of the subject. Notably, writing the Conclusion can be one of the most challenging parts of this kind of project. You typically write the Conclusion once you have finished the Body, but in practice, you will sometimes find that a well-written conclusion will reveal a few mistakes of logic in the body!

Cause and Effect Essay Sample

Be sure to check the sample essay, completed by our writers. Use it as an example to write your own cause and effect essay. Link: Cause and effect essay sample: Advertising ethic issues .

Tips and Common Mistakes from Our Expert Writers

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Cause And Effect Essay Guide

Cause And Effect Essay Examples

Best Cause and Effect Essay Examples To Get Inspiration + Simple Tips

What is a Cause and Effect Essay?

A cause and effect essay explores why things happen (causes) and what happens as a result (effects). This type of essay aims to uncover the connections between events, actions, or phenomena. It helps readers understand the reasons behind certain outcomes.

In a cause and effect essay, you typically:

Identify the Cause: Explain the event or action that initiates a chain of events. This is the "cause."
Discuss the Effect: Describe the consequences or outcomes resulting from the cause.
Analyze the Relationship: Clarify how the cause leads to the effect, showing the cause-and-effect link.

Cause and effect essays are common in various academic disciplines. For instance, studies in sciences, history, and the social sciences rely on essential cause and effect questions. For instance, "what are the effects of climate change?", or "what are the causes of poverty?"

Now that you know what a cause and effect is, let’s read some examples.

Cause and Effect Essay Examples for Students

Here is an example of a well-written cause and effect essay on social media. Let’s analyze it in parts to learn why it is good and how you can write an effective essay yourself.

The essay begins with a compelling hook that grabs the reader's attention. It presents a brief overview of the topic clearly and concisely. The introduction covers the issue and ends with a strong thesis statement , stating the essay's main argument – that excessive use of social media can negatively impact mental health.

The first body paragraph sets the stage by discussing the first cause - excessive social media use. It provides data and statistics to support the claim, which makes the argument more compelling. The analysis highlights the addictive nature of social media and its impact on users. This clear and evidence-based explanation prepares the reader for the cause-and-effect relationship to be discussed.

The second body paragraph effectively explores the effect of excessive social media use, which is increased anxiety and depression. It provides a clear cause-and-effect relationship, with studies backing the claims. The paragraph is well-structured and uses relatable examples, making the argument more persuasive.

The third body paragraph effectively introduces the second cause, which is social comparison and FOMO. It explains the concept clearly and provides relatable examples. It points out the relevance of this cause in the context of social media's impact on mental health, preparing the reader for the subsequent effect to be discussed.

The fourth body paragraph effectively explores the second effect of social comparison and FOMO, which is isolation and decreased self-esteem. It provides real-world consequences and uses relatable examples.

The conclusion effectively summarizes the key points discussed in the essay. It restates the thesis statement and offers practical solutions, demonstrating a well-rounded understanding of the topic. The analysis emphasizes the significance of the conclusion in leaving the reader with a call to action or reflection on the essay's central theme.

This essay follows this clear cause and effect essay structure to convey the message effectively:

Read our cause and effect essay outline blog to learn more about how to structure your cause and effect essay effectively.

Free Cause and Effect Essay Samples

The analysis of the essay above is a good start to understanding how the paragraphs in a cause and effect essay are structured. You can read and analyze more examples below to improve your understanding.

Cause and Effect Essay Elementary School

Cause and Effect Essay For College Students

Short Cause and Effect Essay Sample

Cause and Effect Essay Example for High School

Cause And Effect Essay IELTS

Bullying Cause and Effect Essay Example

Cause and Effect Essay Smoking

Cause and Effect Essay Topics

Wondering which topic to write your essay on? Here is a list of cause and effect essay topic ideas to help you out.

The Effects of Social Media on Real Social Networks
The Causes And Effects of Cyberbullying
The Causes And Effects of Global Warming
The Causes And Effects of WW2
The Causes And Effects of Racism
The Causes And Effects of Homelessness
The Causes and Effects of Parental Divorce on Children.
The Causes and Effects of Drug Addiction
The Impact of Technology on Education
The Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality

Need more topics? Check out our list of 150+ cause and effect essay topics to get more interesting ideas.

Tips For Writing a Good Cause and Effect Essay

Reading and following the examples above can help you write a good essay. However, you can make your essay even better by following these tips.

Choose a Clear and Manageable Topic: Select a topic that you can explore thoroughly within the essay's word limit. A narrowly defined topic will make it easier to establish cause-and-effect relationships.
Research and Gather Evidence: Gather relevant data, statistics, examples, and expert opinions to support your arguments. Strong evidence enhances the credibility of your essay.
Outline Your Essay: Create a structured outline that outlines the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. This will provide a clear roadmap for your essay and help you present causes and effects clearly and coherently.
Transitional Phrases: Use transitional words and phrases like "because," "due to," "as a result," "consequently," and "therefore" to connect causes and effects within your sentences and paragraphs.
Support Each Point: Dedicate a separate paragraph to each cause and effect. Provide in-depth explanations, examples, and evidence for each point.
Proofread and Edit: After completing the initial draft, carefully proofread your essay for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. Additionally, review the content for clarity, coherence, and flow.
Peer Review: Seek feedback from a peer or someone familiar with the topic to gain an outside perspective. They can help identify any areas that need improvement.
Stay Focused: Avoid going off-topic or including irrelevant information. Stick to the causes and effects you've outlined in your thesis statement.
Revise as Needed: Don't hesitate to make revisions and improvements as needed. The process of revising and refining your essay is essential for producing a high-quality final product.

To Sum Up ,

Cause and effect essays are important for comprehending the intricate relationships that shape our world. With the help of the examples and tips above, you can confidently get started on your essay.

If you still need further help, you can hire a professional writer to help you out. At MyPerfectWords.com , we’ve got experienced and qualified essay writers who can help you write an excellent essay on any topic and for all academic levels.

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Do migrant remittances affect household spending? Focus on wedding expenditures

Jakhongir kakhkharov.

1 College of Business, Government and Law, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

Muzaffarjon Ahunov

2 Endicott College of International Studies, Woosong University Jayang-Dong, Dong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea

We use nationally representative survey data and propensity score matching to investigate the impact of remittances from labor migrants on households’ wedding expenditures. The investigation provides evidence that remittance-receiving households spend a smaller share of their budget on wedding ceremonies. Since lavish wedding ceremonies serve the purpose of increasing households' social status through conspicuous displays of wealth, the study concludes that remittance-recipient households are less likely to be engaged in conspicuous consumption than are households that do not receive remittances.

Introduction

International remittances refer to money that workers who are employed outside their countries send home. These unilateral transfers attract the attention of researchers and policymakers worldwide because of their size and potential as an external source of capital for emerging economies’ development.

The body of research that studies how international remittances impact households' consumption and investment patterns in remittance-receiving countries has surged over the past decade. We contribute to this literature in three ways: First, we investigate whether remittances are spent on a type of conspicuous consumption, that is, status-signaling wedding ceremonies. Although the literature on the way migrants and their families use remittances is abundant, only a few studies scrutinize the impact of remittances on conspicuous consumption. The meager extant literature on the relationship reaches contradictory conclusions. For instance, households in the Philippines that receive remittances spend more on consumer goods and leisure (Tabuga 2007 ), while remittance income does not significantly affect conspicuous consumption in Sri Lanka (De and Ratha 2012 ). We address this contradiction and focus on a specific type of conspicuous consumption–excessive expenditures on wedding ceremonies.

Second, focusing on lavish wedding ceremonies as a type of conspicuous consumption allows us to compare the consumption patterns of remittance-receiving households with those of non-recipient households through the lens of informal institutions like customs and behavior patterns that the remittance research largely ignores. In particular, the literature and policymakers express concerns that traditional and cultural structures that emphasize status-oriented activities may adversely influence how remittances are spent (Ilkhamov 2013 ; Irnazarov 2015 ; Reeves 2012 ). These expenditures are often substantial in traditional societies. For instance, Irnazarov ( 2015 ) estimates the cost of a wedding in Uzbekistan at around US$10,000, including dowry expenses, about twenty times the average monthly wage of an Uzbek laborer working in Russia (Petrova 2017 ). A similar situation occurs in neighboring Tajikistan, where ‘ peer pressure and comparisons with neighbors are indeed key factors in holding lavish ceremonies in a country in which almost half of the population lives in poverty. When someone spends $2,000 for a wedding, a neighbor will usually try to spend the same or even more money for their ceremonies’ (Najibullah 2007 , p. 2). In the context of Central Asia, these lavish ceremonies are likely to divert household resources from spending on asset accumulation, health, education, and other important matters; they are even likely to push households into debt. As a result, both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan introduced bans on the size of these traditional ceremonies.

Third, we place our research in the infrequently studied transition context of Uzbekistan, a country that has seen large inflows of remittances during the last two decades. As such, this paper is related to the Kakhkharov et al. ( 2020 ) and Kakhkharov and Ahunov ( 2020 ) studies, which use the same dataset. However, in contrast with Kakhkharov et al. ( 2020 ), we specifically focus on a particular type of expenditure (wedding ceremonies) and use a different methodology. This allows us to scrutinize the link between remittances and a particular type of conspicuous consumption. As to the Kakhkharov and Ahunov ( 2020 ) work, the study merely compares mean household expenditures to draw inferences regarding the differences in expenditures of households receiving and not receiving remittances. The present research extends the analysis using rigorous econometric techniques and arrives at results contrary to the conclusions stated in Kakhkharov and Ahunov ( 2020 ). Uzbekistan’s experience could be relevant to other transition countries in Central Asia that are at a similar stage in their paths to becoming market economies and share similar histories, traditions, cultures, and levels of exposure to remittances.

Whether institutional environment and traditions similarly influence the spending behavior of households that receive remittances and those that do not have important policy implications. If remittance-receiving households’ expenditure patterns differ from those of non-recipient households, factors beyond the characteristics of households, local institutional environment, traditions, and policy-making may need to be investigated to determine the effect of these monetary flows on economic development. Moreover, if remittances are invested in human capital, education, health, or small business, their positive impact on economic growth is maximized (Acosta 2011 ), but if remittances are spent mainly on conspicuous consumption, their effect may not be productive to the economy as a whole (Chami et al. 2003 ).

This paper uses household-level data from the Uzbekistan Jobs, Skills, and Migration Survey jointly administered by the German Agency for International Development (GIZ) and the World Bank in 2013. The survey covers 1,500 households, and it is nationally representative. We, therefore, can investigate the impact of remittances on certain household expenditures items, especially traditional ceremonies. In contrast with most empirical studies in this area, which apply ordinary least squares (OLS) methodology supplemented by a sample-selection procedure or instrumental variable estimations, we use a propensity score matching (PSM) methodology to evaluate the impact of remittances on household expenditures. This methodology is often used to assess the effects of policies because it can give accurate results in non-experimental settings (Caliendo and Kopeinig 2008 ; Dehejia and Wahba 1999 ). The results of our analysis provide evidence that households that receive remittances tend to spend a smaller share of their earnings on traditional ceremonies and a greater share on other large non-food items than do households that do not receive remittances. These results show that remittance recipients are less likely to engage in conspicuous consumption.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature on the topic, while Sect. 3 presents the data and the research methodology. Section 4 reports the results, and Sect. 5 draws conclusions and discusses policy implications.

Literature review

Arguing that almost everyone wants to display wealth and attain the rank associated with it, Adam Smith (1759) was among the first scholars to suggest the significance of conspicuous consumption as a motivator of human behavior. The rigorous theoretical study of social status and conspicuous consumption dates back to Veblen ( 1899 ), who defines conspicuous consumption as consumption that has the purpose of demonstrating one’s economic position to others. Ireland (1994) and Bagwell and Bernheim ( 1996 ) further developed the theory of conspicuous consumption as a signal of wealth. Since then, conspicuous consumption has become a well-researched area, but most research still focuses on luxury goods and ignores luxury experiences like expensive wedding celebrations. This paper investigates this unconventional type of households’ conspicuous consumption in the context of international remittances received in Uzbekistan.

Lavish celebrations of weddings and other life events to enhance the status of households are common in developing countries and the transition economies of the former Soviet Union. Exorbitant celebrations are documented in scholarly discourse for India (Bloch et al. 2004 ; Rao 2001 ), Namibia (Pauli 2013 ), Tajikistan (Marat 2008 ), and Kazakhstan (Werner 1997 ), among other countries. These expenditures could be considered reasonable if they help maintain social bonds and networks to cope with poverty (Rao 2001 ). Still, many observers find that conspicuous consumption frequently comes at the expense of basic and more productive needs, such as education and healthcare (Charles et al. 2009 ; Linssen et al. 2011 ).

The expenditure decisions of households are related to a large extent to the reasons why migrants send remittances. Therefore, Lucas and Stark ( 1985 ) develop a theoretical framework for micro-level investigations on remittances and pin down three principal motivations for sending remittances at the household level. These are pure altruism, pure self-interest, and tempered altruism or enlightened self-interest. The problem is that in many cases, these motives could account for a similar type of migration and remittance behaviors.

A valuable framework for studying remittances, migration, and household expenditures is the New Economics of Labor Migration (NELM), developed by Stark ( 1991 ) and colleagues to link remittance behavior to migration decisions. According to NELM, households decide to send a household member to work in another country to improve the family’s well-being by maximizing joint income and minimizing risks. Therefore, the primary purpose of remittances is to provide additional funding, insurance in case the primary source of family income falters, and financial protection for a rainy day. The NELM is an original, sensible, and functional framework used extensively in studies of remittances and migration. However, the NELM framework assumes that households act rationally and neglects the role of informal social institutions (e.g., traditions, positions, norms, community, extended family, informal associations) as determinants of behavior (Aslan 2011 ; Hagen-Zanker 2010 ). In the context of Uzbekistan, the present research shows that these informal social institutions and traditions have less influence over the spending decisions of households that receive remittances than they do over households that do not, indicating that remittances are transforming social institutions.

Carling ( 2014 ) uses a “scripts” approach to explain the expenditure behavior of remittance recipients and transformations in social and non-economic institutions. This approach in the context of the present paper is more appropriate because the NELM’s focus on economic utility may obscure the relational aspects of remittances (Åkesson 2011 ), which appear to be a dominant factor for interpreting the expenditures patterns of Uzbek households receiving remittances. Indeed, migrants may “authorize” (one of the scripts suggested by Carling ( 2014 )) particular expenditures on the migrant’s behalf, households may “pool” (another script proposed by Carling ( 2014 )) their resources for the wedding ceremony purposes. Modern information and communication technologies (ICT), in turn, enable migrants to monitor how remittances are spent, which imbues expenditures with the identity of the remitter (Åkesson 2011 ). Thus, the “scripts” framework differs from the NELM because it may explain the spending behavior of households based not exclusively on motivations to remit but also on expectations of a remitter how the remitted money should be spent. These expectations, in turn, could be impacted and shaped by the environment migrants live and work that could result in shifts in the perceptions of appropriate spending behavior that is prevailing in their home country.

Even though the empirical evidence that a big part of remittances is spent on conspicuous consumption remains limited, several studies voiced concerns about wasting the income from remittances in the status-oriented consumption of goods and services (Airola 2007 ; Carling 2008 ; Zarate‐Hoyos 2004 ). Day and Içduygu ( 1999 ) use interviews with migrant households to demonstrate some cases of conspicuous consumption. Likewise, Tabuga ( 2007 ), using quantile regressions, shows that remittance-receiving households allocate more to conspicuous consumption in the Philippines than their peers that do not receive remittances. Since data for leisure were not disaggregated, Tabuga recommends a more detailed study of leisure, and we respond to this call by focusing on a specific type of family occasion (wedding ceremonies) for the case of Uzbekistan. Contrary to these findings, De and Ratha ( 2012 ) document that remittances in Sri Lanka do not have a statistically significant impact on another type of conspicuous consumption–the accumulation of ‘luxury’ assets like motor vehicles and land.

Studies applying advanced econometric methods to identify the relationship between remittances and household expenditures in Central Asia remain scant. One of the few such examples is Clément ( 2011 ), who applies PSM analysis to a dataset for Tajikistan to show that households that receive remittances spend more on food, non-food items, and health than do households that do not. Analogously to Kakhkharov et al. ( 2020 ), Clément ( 2011 ) finds no evidence of a significant effect of remittances on education expenditures.

Uzbekistan is the most populous (33.5 million inhabitants) and the primary migrant worker sending country in the former USSR. Russia and Kazakhstan are the main destinations for the predominantly seasonal labor migration of migrant workers from Uzbekistan. Estimates indicate about 2.5 million Uzbek labor migrants are abroad, with some two million working in Russia (IWPR 2021 ). These migratory flows have complex repercussions on the societies and economies of Russia, Kazakhstan, and impoverished Uzbekistan. Labor out-migration eases unemployment-fueled social tension and political instability (Laruelle 2007 ). For example, despite travel restrictions introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic, the total volume of recorded remittances from Russia to Uzbekistan reached US$ 4.24 billion in 2020 (Central Bank of Russia 2020 ). This makes up roughly 7.6% of Uzbekistan’s GDP. Remittances from Kazakhstan appear to be small at US$ 351 million (TASS 2021 ). However, the long land border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and the visa-free regime may have facilitated the informal flow of remittances. The figures for officially recorded remittances may significantly underestimate the volume of total remittances (Kakhkharov et al. 2017 ).

Empirical research on the relationship between remittances and household consumption in Uzbekistan is scant. Kakhkharov et al. ( 2020 ), using data from the World Bank/GIZ Uzbekistan Jobs, Skills, and Migration Survey, find that remittance‐receiving households spend a significantly smaller part of their budgets on food and health, and a larger part of their total expenditures on non‐food consumption. Since Kakhkharov et al. ( 2020 ) use instrumental variable estimations to correct for endogeneity and this strategy relies on the robustness and quality of available instruments, the results are highly sensitive to the quality of the instruments (Adams 2010 ).

Ritual ceremonies in Uzbekistan, especially wedding celebrations, have been an object of study for researchers from many areas, including anthropology, sociology, and ethnography. Agadjanian and Makarova ( 2003 ) argue that the practice of giving and taking gifts and holding expensive wedding ceremonies in Uzbekistan is rooted in the Soviet system, where investment opportunities were limited, and shortages of goods were widespread, so households showed their status through the accumulation and display of consumer goods. Since the Soviet system placed particular importance on marriage, weddings became the central occasion for demonstrative exchanges of wealth between families (Humphrey 1983 ). Makarova ( 1999 ) notes that this form of conspicuous consumption reached extraordinary lengths in Uzbekistan because of the tradition of gift exchanges and building networks through these exchanges.

Despite almost thirty years of transition to a market economy and a greater variety of choices for consumers, investment opportunities in Uzbekistan remain inadequate. The challenges Central Asia and Uzbekistan face regarding improving their investment climate are related to institutional governance, such as the government's effectiveness, regulatory quality, the rule of law, corruption, and the peculiarities of the legacy of the Soviet period (Kakhkharov 2019 ; Kakhkharov and Akimov 2018 ). Central Asian countries rank among the lowest in the world in the World Bank indicators of the quality of governance.

Notwithstanding some regional variations in the wedding-related exchanges of gifts, both the groom’s and the bride’s sides are expected to make significant contributions to the exchanges and spend heavily on the wedding itself. For instance, Irnazarov ( 2015 ) estimates that wedding costs may exceed twice the annual per-capita income in Uzbekistan. Urinboyev and Svensson ( 2013 ) emphasize the role of weddings in providing ritualistic symbolism through which individuals and groups can display their social status and power and shape their relationships with one another. Wedding celebrations may even blur the boundaries between gifts and bribes in a country whose economy tends to be based on informal and kinship networks. Ilkhamov ( 2013 ) identifies two reasons that most remittances are spent on traditional rites like weddings: (i) the perception of such ceremonies as a kind of investment in solidarity networks and (ii) the desire to maintain social status and prestige in the local community. Ilkhamov ( 2013 ) concludes that these expectations often turn out to be illusory and that they drive already low-income families into deeper poverty. Social anthropologist Reeves ( 2012 ) shows that the earnings of labor migrants in Kyrgyzstan have become the main source of money for ritual feasting, including wedding celebrations. However, Linssen et al. ( 2011 ) regression analyses show that the quest for social status through lavish weddings in India may not bring satisfaction or happiness, as those who spent more on conspicuous consumption, regardless of their income, reported lower levels of subjective well-being.

Data description and methodology

Data for this study come from the survey on jobs, skills, and migration of citizens in Uzbekistan developed and conducted jointly by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the World Bank in 2013. The survey is representative at the national, regional, and urban/rural levels. The survey employed two tools: a core questionnaire and a skills questionnaire. The sample size of the core questionnaire was 1500 households (8,622 individuals). One adult per household was randomly selected to partake in the skills questionnaire, so the second questionnaire’s sample consisted of 1500 individuals (Ajwad et al. 2014 ).

The focus of the core questionnaire was on education, employment, migration, health expenditures, remittances, government transfers, financial services, subjective poverty, housing conditions, and household expenditures. The skills questionnaire, in turn, contains modules on labor and work expectations, migration and preparation for migration, language skills, and technical skill training.

Table Table1 1 demonstrates the descriptive statistics, which shows that 28% (404 out of 1432) of households received remittances and that about 78% of those households had a migrant laborer in another country. 1 Therefore, it appears that it is predominantly households with migrants that have access to remittances, while 22% of households may be receiving remittances from extended family members, friends, or distant relatives. The mean household size is greater for households that receive remittances than households that do not (6.28 individuals vs. 5.49), which may signify a high dependency ratio that drives labor migrants out of Uzbekistan in search of higher income to support dependents. The share of household members aged 60 and older is higher among households that do not receive remittances and do not have labor migrants. Perhaps in the absence of an adequate public aged-care system in Uzbekistan, the younger generation usually takes care of the older generation. Young people with no old age people in their household may be free to travel abroad. The share of employed individuals (in all types of jobs) is lower among remittance-receiving households, probably because these households send migrants to work in other countries. In addition, 74% of the remittance-receiving households are in rural areas, so labor migration in Uzbekistan originates primarily from rural Uzbekistan, where traditions and rituals are likely to be especially entrenched. Households that receive remittances also have less higher education, so most laborers from Uzbekistan go abroad to do unskilled works (UNDP 2008 ). More than 40% of household members work in the occasional, temporary, or informal sector.

Descriptive statistics, means comparison t -test.

Source : Uzbekistan Jobs, Skills, and Migration Survey

Methodology

A method that is sometimes used to identify the impact of remittances on household expenditures is comparing the means of interest for remittance recipients and non-recipients to reveal the differences between the two. However, this method assumes the recipient and non-recipient households are randomly assigned, as in a controlled experiment, or that their characteristics are identical (Kakhkharov and Ahunov 2020 ). Still, households that send a migrant laborer and receive remittances may differ substantially from households that do not. For instance, one household having more dependents than another could affect the outcome variables, making it almost impossible to establish if differences in the observable outcomes are due to treatment effects of remittances or the difference in the number of dependents (Kakhkharov and Ahunov 2020 ). Even so, a juxtaposition of means could help set the stage for further analysis of how households whose exposure to remittances differs spend their income.

Although in some contexts, it might be incorrect to see migrants as “members of specific households in the country of origin (Brown et al. 2014 ), the surveys and research in the context of Uzbekistan indicate that the model of the household assumed in this study fits the social reality of migration. For example, responding to the Juraev ( 2012 ) survey, 28 out of 30 households informed that the decision regarding the migration of a family member was taken in a family council. As to the motivation of the families to send a member to work abroad, households in the survey indicated “construction of a house,” “gathering money for a wedding,” a desire to buy a car for the family, and a need for start-up capital for entrepreneurship activity as the driving factors in making the migration decision. All of these factors appear to be household-level goals. Therefore, it is apparent that households jointly decide to send a family member to work abroad with the hope of receiving remittances that will be pooled within the household. The temporary and seasonal character of migration in Central Asia might be a factor too, as in most cases migrants are expected to return home for holidays or permanently and remain part of their household.

In addition to comparing the means, we estimate the effect of remittances on household expenditures using PSM methodology and control for several characteristics that may impact the receipt of remittances . In the present research context, the PSM method introduced by Rosenbaum and Rubin ( 1983 ) involves matching households that receive remittances with those that do not but have close propensity scores comparable based on the observed characteristics. The average treatment effect is given by the difference in expenditure patterns between the two groups. The matching method has the edge over other methods used to study the impact of remittances (e.g., IV, OLS supplemented by the Heckman two-step procedure) because it does not require parametric functional form and exclusion restrictions (De and Ratha 2012 ). In addition, Dehejia and Wahba ( 2002 ) show that PSM’s estimates of the treatment effects are superior to those of the parametric techniques.

The PSM is the appropriate approach for empirical investigations of households’ expenditure decisions because the PSM helps reduce the selection bias linked to observed differences in the socioeconomic characteristics between households that receive remittances and those that do not. Since the treatment is assumed to be random for households with similar values in the explanatory variables, we can use the outcomes of similar households that were not treated to estimate untreated outcomes. In other words, for each household that receives remittances, we attribute the missing outcome by finding other households in the data whose predictors are similar but not exposed to the treatment.

For the PSM methodology to produce good results and to decrease the chance of bias, the treatment group (remittance recipients) and the control group (non-recipients) must be located in the same market, the outcome variables must be measured using the same methodologies for both groups, and the dataset must cover a large number of characteristics that would capture ‘non-ignorable’ determinants (Heckman et al. 1997 ; LaLonde 1986 ; Smith and Todd 2005 ). All these conditions based on observable characteristics are met in the present research. However, we must admit that unobserved pre-migration factors cannot be orthogonal to the migration/remittance decision.

The empirical approach can be summarized as follows. D i is a dummy variable that equals 1 if a household i is a treated household (i.e., the household receives remittances), and 0 otherwise. Y i1 and Y i0 are outcome variables that describe household expenditure patterns for unit i , conditional on the presence and absence of the treatment, respectively. The treatment effect for any i measures the difference between the outcome indicator with the treatment and the outcome indicator without the treatment and is given by:

While we can observe the outcome that is affected by the treatment, the non-treatment outcome is not observable because, in cross-sectional household surveys, one cannot observe a household in two states (receiving and not receiving remittances) at the same time, so the parts of the equations E ( Y i 1 | D i = 1) and E ( Y i 0 | D i = 0) are observable from the survey, whereas E ( Y i 1 | D i = 0) and E ( Y i 0 | D i = 1) are not. This is the fundamental missing value or counterfactual problem that the Rosenbaum–Rubin framework deals with in the PSM framework. PSM estimators pair each treated observation (households that receive remittances) with the counterfactual observation in terms of its propensity score to solve the evaluation problem.

The critical conjecture of PSM methodology is the conditional independence assumption , which requires the common variables that affect treatment assignment and treatment-specific outcomes to be observable (Rosenbaum and Rubin 1983 ). This assumption allows us to pair households that receive remittances with other households like them, except that they do not receive remittances.

The first step of the PSM methodology is to estimate the households’ probability of receiving the treatment (i.e., receiving remittances) using observed socioeconomic variables and any probability model (Caliendo and Kopeinig 2008 ). We use a logit model to deduce these propensity scores—the predicted probability of receiving remittances conditional to the characteristics included in the model. In the second step, using the estimated propensity scores, we match remittance-receiving households with non-recipient households chosen using nearest-neighbor matching with replacement and kernel matching. In nearest-neighbor matching with replacement, we match each remittance-receiving household with a household with no remittance income that has the closest propensity score to that of the remittance-receiving household. The replacement option allows a household with no remittance income to be used as a match more than once. Although matching with replacement could affect estimates' variance, the alternative approach (matching without replacement) increases the potential for bias by matching with control observations whose scores may differ significantly. In short, allowing replacement improves the quality of matching and decreases bias.

The kernel-matching estimator compares the outcome variable of each treated unit to the average outcome of a group of non-treated households, where the weight of each household in the comparison group is proportional to the proximity of the household’s outcome to that in the comparison group. One of the advantages of this approach is that it lowers the variance by using more information, but a major drawback is that it may use observations that could be bad matches. To determine the control group’s weights, we use bi-weight kernel-matching, where households with no remittance income but a high propensity to be in the group of remittance-receiving households are assigned double weight. In so doing, we ensure that we select the most similar households, and by applying both methods and conducting balancing tests, we can determine whether the results are robust to matching methods.

To test the robustness of our results, we also applied additional matching techniques – radius and Mahalanobis distance matching. Dehejia and Wahba ( 2002 ) suggest radius matching, the basic idea of which is to use not only the nearest neighbor within each caliper but all of the comparison members within the caliper. An advantage of this method is that it uses only as many comparison units as are available within the caliper and therefore allows for usage of extra (fewer) units when suitable matches are (not) available (Caliendo and Kopeinig 2008 ). Mahalanobis distance matches observations that are closely based on a distance called the Mahalanobis distance. For two observations to have a Mahalanobis distance of 0, they must have the same covariate values. The more different the covariate values, the larger the Mahalanobis distance. The advantage of Mahalanobis matching is that if it is possible to find control observations close to the treated observation on the Mahalanobis distance, each pair will have similar covariate values, and the distribution of the covariates in the treatment groups in the matched sample will be equal.

One of the limitations of PSM is that it assumes that a set of observable variables captures all of the relevant differences between the treated and untreated groups, so the non-treatment outcome is independent of treatment status, conditional on those characteristics (Jimenez‐Soto and Brown 2012 ; Smith and Todd 2005 ). The unobserved variables like motivation, perseverance, and altruism that may affect remittance decisions may also affect the remittance decision. To decrease the potential for such a hidden variable bias, we use many explanatory variables, as recommended in the literature (LaLonde 1986 ; Smith and Todd 2005 ).

Results and tests

Table Table2 2 compares the means of household expenditures, in logs of Uzbek soums, as a share of total expenditures and a percentage of total income for households that receive remittances and those that do not. The results indicate that households that receive remittances have higher income and spend more on large items of household consumption (car maintenance, home improvement, small electric items, and appliances), clothing & footwear, and ambulatory health care. Other differences are insignificant both economically and statistically.

Mean differences in household spending, t -test: in logs, percent of total expenditures, and percent of total income

Table Table2 2 shows that the income of remittance recipients is twice their expenditures, whereas the income of households without remittances exceeds their expenditures by only 61%. What’s more, households that do not receive remittances spend a larger share of their total expenditure budgets and a larger share of their total income on food and non-food items. In comparison, remittance recipients spend a larger share of both on large items of household consumption. In addition, households that do not receive remittances spend a greater share of their income on wedding gifts than those that receive remittances. The share of income they spend on traditional ceremonies in their income is also greater, but this is only statistically significant at a ten percent confidence level.

Estimating what determines whether a household will receive remittances is part of applying PSM analysis. The variables to be included must be relevant to the decision to send remittances. To avoid endogeneity-related issues, the independent variables must not directly impact household expenditures other than through remittances. Omitting variables that may influence this decision may result in biased estimates (Dehejia and Wahba 1999 ). Therefore, the selection of the covariates must be based on sound knowledge of the institutional setting and the results of previous research (Caliendo and Kopeinig 2008 ; Sianesi 2004 ; Smith and Todd 2005 ).

We identified several explanatory variables in the propensity score estimation based on prior literature. In particular, these variables include household characteristics (household size and the number of children and elderly dependents, adults of working age, and women), location (urban, rural), and characteristics of the head of household (education, sex, marital status, age, occupational status related to agriculture or not), and past migration experience. These characteristics are all standard determinants of remittances used in PSM models that evaluate the impact of remittances on household behavior (Clément 2011 ; Cox-Edwards and Rodríguez-Oreggia 2009 ). We also included household members’ employment characteristics, which might influence the decision to migrate for work (Jimenez‐Soto and Brown 2012 ).

Propensity scores are calculated from the logit model presented in Table Table3 3 and estimated for households that receive part of their income from remittances. The dependent variable is a binary variable that equals 1 when a household receives remittances and 0 otherwise.

Determinants that a household receives remittances, logit model

Standard errors in parentheses

*p < 0.1, *** p < 0.01

The explanatory power of the logit model for receipt of remittances is good, as the pseudo-R-squared is 45%. The most significant determinant of remittances is past migration experience, self-employment of household members, and a married status of the head of household. The finding that migration experience increases the likelihood that a household receives remittances is consistent with Clément ( 2011 ) results. The presence of self-employed members in the household is negatively related to receipt of remittances, perhaps because migration and self-employment are substitute activities. The probability that a household receives remittances decreases if the household head is married, possibly because having an additional adult increases income and decreases the need for migration-related remittances. This interpretation is confirmed by analyzing the variation in household composition presented in Table Table1 1 with descriptive statistics. Although the descriptive statistics indicate that half of the households are multi-generational, in only 29% of households receiving remittances, the head of the household is retired. For households not receiving remittances, this indicator stands at 37%. Juraev ( 2012 ) survey of 150 migrants also indicates that having an additional member in a family who has a monthly income increases the likelihood of migration by decreasing the family's financial burden shared with someone else. The statistically significant result for self-employed households and borderline-significant result for married heads of household indicate that migrating to send remittances home is primarily a strategy for coping with unemployment and relative poverty in Uzbekistan.

While PSM can address issues of endogeneity that arise from selection bias, we need to be satisfied that the main independent variable of interest to us is not endogenous because of reverse causality. For example, remittance-receiving households may pressure migrants to remit when they expect to have wedding celebrations causing more expenditure on wedding ceremonies and more remittances. Since our estimations show that remittance-receiving households spend a smaller share of their budget on wedding ceremonies than households that do not receive remittances, endogeneity is not likely to be an issue. Nevertheless, to ease concerns about endogeneity regarding other expenditures, we also estimated the logit model with an alternative set of variables, such as rural dummy and community level remittances. We found no significant effect on the estimations reported in this paper. 2

The next step of our PSM estimations is to compare households with and without remittances in terms of their spending on certain household items. We use the estimated coefficients from the logit model to calculate the predicted probability that each household receives part of its income in the form of remittances. Thus, each household that receives remittances was matched with the non-recipient household using the nearest-neighbor matching with replacement and kernel-matching procedures. The treatment effects for remittances are reported in Table Table4 4 .

Propensity matching differences in household spending in percent of total annual expenditures

a NN2 stands for ‘two nearest neighbors.’

* p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01

Table Table4 4 shows that households that receive remittances spend more on large non-food items (e.g., car maintenance, home improvements, small electric appliances). They spend less on food and basic non-food household items (e.g., cosmetics, personal care, household supplies). There is also evidence that remittances increase the share of healthcare expenditures and formal education, although the education expenditures account for a small portion of the households’ budgets. These effects confirm that migration and its associated remittances are not a strategy for meeting basic needs for most households. As to expenditures on wedding ceremonies, the difference in the proportion of household budgets spent on traditional ceremonies (e.g., marriage, birth, funeral) is small and statistically insignificant, perhaps because data at hand show total expenditure on traditional ceremonies, but not on weddings specifically. In other words, expenditures on weddings are not reported separately from those on smaller ceremonies, such as birthdays.

To isolate expenditures on wedding ceremonies, we filtered the sample by the minimum expenditure required to conduct a wedding ceremony based on the observation that weddings are the costliest type of traditional ceremony (Ilkhamov 2013 ) and separated a subsample of households that held weddings in the year before when the survey was conducted. To accomplish this filtering, we used data from the Social Development Research Cooperation Project (SDRC), which was conducted in Uzbekistan in 2001, and surveyed households on the cost of wedding ceremonies. Respondents in the SDRC project reported that the minimum wedding costs were US$ 170 in Fergana city and neighboring rural areas in 2001. Considering the dollar inflation rate of about 3% annually, the minimum cost of a wedding party in 2012 (the year when the Labor Skills Survey was conducted in Uzbekistan) was about US$200. The local currency equivalent of this dollar amount at the prevailing curb 3 market foreign exchange rate in 2012 was about UZS (Uzbek soums) 500,000, so this amount was used as a filter to select the households that conducted wedding ceremonies. Other ceremonies included in this expenditure item in the survey (funerals events) cost much less (Ilkhamov 2013 ). We also considered the possibility that households may have conducted two modest wedding ceremonies. However, the survey data show that only 5% of households spend more than UZS 1,000,000 (sufficient for two modest wedding ceremonies) on traditional ceremonies.

The descriptive statistics for the subsample that held wedding celebrations are shown in Table Table5. 5 . The table shows that the characteristics of this subsample are broadly similar to those of the total sample.

Descriptive statistics.

Means comparison t -test. Sub-sample of households who held wedding celebrations

Table Table6 6 compares the means of household expenditures in logs of Uzbek soums as a share of total expenditures and as a percentage of total income for households that receive remittances and those that do not for the subsample of households that held wedding celebrations. This subsample’s expenditure patterns are similar to those of the entire sample. Households that receive remittances have higher incomes and spend more on large items of household consumption than households that do not receive remittances.

Mean differences in household spending, t -test: in logs, percent of total expenditures, and total income

Sub-sample of households who held wedding celebrations

Table Table7 7 shows the results of estimating the determinants of households whose income includes remittances for the small subsample of households that had wedding ceremonies. Once more, the estimates are broadly similar to the logit model results for the full sample.

Determinants of households whose incomes include remittances, logit model

Standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01

Table Table8 8 reports the main results of this study–the treatment effects for households that held wedding ceremonies. The subsample consists of 163 households that conducted wedding ceremonies (107 non-recipients of remittances and 56 recipients), so bi-weight kernel matching is not used because the likelihood of bad matches increases substantially with the decreased size of the sample. We use nearest-neighbor matching limited to two neighbors to increase the quality of the match. Contrary to our expectations, the results show that the treatment group allocates a significantly smaller share of household budgets to wedding ceremonies—10.62% versus 19.93%—and this result is statistically significant. Estimations for this subsample indicate that remittance-receiving households allocate a larger share of their expenditures to large non-food consumption items than households that do not receive remittances (10.4% vs. 3.66%). The results also show that the treatment group spends less on pre-school education, perhaps because of the loss of a family member to migration and preparations for wedding ceremonies with a smaller number of adults than the control group. Hospitalization expenditures are also smaller for remittance-receiving households, perhaps because of higher expenditures for ambulatory health care in the treatment group, which may lower the need for hospitalization. Although the coefficient for this expenditure is not statistically significant in this subsample, it is borderline significant in the full sample.

Propensity matching differences in household spending using nearest neighbor matching (two neighbors)

** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01

Since the data on wedding expenses focus on the amount estimated from another survey, this may result in measurement error in the outcome variable. Therefore, to show the robustness of our estimations, we used alternative cut-off points and re-ran the regressions for expenditures exceeding UZS 400,000 and UZS 600,000. The results are presented in “Tables 9 and and10 10 in Appendix” for the respective cut-off amounts. Even though the results are statistically less significant, both tables indicate that households receiving remittances spend a smaller share of their budget on wedding ceremonies.

Sub-sample of households who held wedding celebrations. Ceremonies—400 and more

Sub-sample of households who held wedding celebrations. Ceremonies—600 and more

To test the robustness of our results to using alternative matching methods, we also applied radius and Mahalanobis distance matching techniques. The results are reported in “Tables 11 and and12 12 in Appendix,” and both indicate that households receiving remittances spend a smaller part of their budget on wedding ceremonies. The effect is statistically significant using the Mahalanobis distance matching.

Propensity matching differences in household spending using radius matching, at caliper = 0.1

Sub-sample of households who held wedding celebrations. Ceremonies—500 and more

Pseudo- R 2 balance statistics before and after matching (restricted sample)

Some of the literature on remittances considers asset accumulation, investments in housing, and motor vehicles as types of conspicuous consumption that are less productive for economic development than expenditures on human capital (Chami et al. 2003 ; De and Ratha 2012 ). However, we argue that, in the context of Central Asia, these investments may be productive, as households may use them as collateral if they need a loan in an economy in which bank lending is driven primarily by the availability of collateral (Kakhkharov and Rohde 2020 ). Furthermore, since about 34% of the total workforce and almost 80% of workers in the agriculture sector in Uzbekistan are informally self-employed (Ajwad et al. 2014 ), these assets may be crucial in obtaining small entrepreneurship loans.

Some of these results appear at first to contrast with the finding that households that receive remittances spend more on investments in human capital (Adams and Cuecuecha 2010 ), as our estimations indicate that these households do not spend a significant portion of their expenditures on education. Perhaps this is partly due to the structure of Uzbekistan’s education system, where secondary education is free and compulsory. However, its citizens’ enrolment rates in tertiary education are the lowest globally, with only 9% of secondary graduates pursuing further studies. The World Bank report notes that more than half of the Uzbek students enrolled in higher education belong to households in the top consumption quintile, suggesting significant financial barriers to tertiary education (Ajwad et al. 2014 ), which may discourage households from investing in education.

Research in the area of conspicuous consumption finds that spending on high-status items frequently comes at the expense of fulfilling basic needs (Charles et al. 2009 ; Linssen et al. 2011 ). As Frank ( 2001 ) and Heffetz and Frank ( 2011 ) show, these status-related expenditures are often inefficient transfers from spending on healthcare, education, and savings. However, it appears that such is not the case with remittances, as remittance recipients prefer to spend on home improvements, car maintenance, and electronic appliances. As to savings, empirical research that uses the same survey as that used in this paper shows that remittance-recipient households in Uzbekistan are more likely to invest their savings in small businesses than are households that do not receive remittances (Kakhkharov 2019 ).

Our estimations indicate that a propensity to invest in physical assets prevails over informal institutional structures reflected in the cultural traditions that drive lavish wedding expenditures. Thus, remittance-receiving households spend less on wedding ceremonies and invest in home improvement and purchase of durables. It appears that remittance-sending labor migrants, having escaped from institutional pressures of their country of origin, channel expenditures to more pressing needs of households.

An interesting finding of the Urinboyev ( 2013 ) study is that communities in Uzbekistan are undergoing significant changes and being transformed due to migratory processes. Expenditures on lavish wedding ceremonies have a special role in boosting the social status of a household. However, this investment in social status may have a lower value for migrants/remitters as they spend most of their time abroad and their social norms and values are transformed. Other factors that play out in the context of the transformed social norms are risks, hardships, and challenges an Uzbek migrant working in Russia is facing, including xenophobic attitudes in the repressive political environment. Urinboyev ( 2013 ) reported that migrants in Russia are not living there but “are struggling to survive.” When earnings come at such a high cost and transitory, migrant households may try to avoid wasting their hard-won income in exorbitant wedding ceremonies. To all appearances, what we observe is the remitters’ desire for control over the frugal use of their remittances which Carling ( 2014 ) terms “hesitant relinquishment.”

Common support and balancing tests

If the propensity scores of large numbers of remittance-recipient households lie outside the boundaries of the distribution of propensity scores for non-recipients, evaluation bias, also known as the failure of common support, maybe at work (Heckman et al. 1997 ). Figures 1 and and2 2 plot the propensity scores to check for the overlap and the region of common support between households that receive remittances and those that do not in the PSM models estimated in this study. The figures show that the overlap between the two groups of households is small when they have high propensity scores, so the nearest neighbor with replacement provides the best matches. However, at lower propensity scores, where some households receive remittances, the overlap is large, so the nearest-neighbor with replacement is probably too restrictive and likely to produce larger standard errors than bi-weight kernel-matching would. Caliendo and Kopeinig ( 2008 ) also note that the common support condition is more important for kernel-matching than the nearest-neighbor matching because kernel-matching uses all untreated observations to estimate the missing counterfactual outcome while only the closest neighbor is used in the nearest-neighbor matching. Figures 1 and and2 2 show that the number of households that fall outside the common support region is small, so failure of common support does not pose a significant problem.

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Overlap in propensity scores of households with remittances and control group. Full sample

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Overlap in propensity scores of households with remittances and control group. Sub-sample of households who held wedding celebrations

To assess the performance of the PSM methodology, we checked the matching procedure for its ability to balance the distribution of the relevant variables in the control and treatment groups; that is, we tested whether the matching procedures remove the significant differences in the means of the relevant baseline variables. To this end, we computed a statistic of standardized bias before and after matching, as Rosenbaum and Rubin ( 1985 ) suggest.

An ‘imbalance’ problem may be encountered when the treatment assignment is not random, increasing the likelihood of major differences in the distribution of characteristics between households that receive remittances and those that do not. We used two common balancing checks: reduction in the absolute ‘standardized bias and the decrease in the pseudo-R-squared in the logit models that predict treatment before and after matching. We did not use t -tests for equality of means, another balancing check that is sometimes used in PSM methodology, because results from the t -tests are sensitive to sample size and may not be correct (Imai et al. 2008 ). Another deficiency of t -tests is that the bias reduction before and after matching is unclear (Caliendo and Kopeinig 2008 ).

The results of standardized bias checks are shown in “Tables 13 , ,14 14 and and15 15 in Appendix.” Tables Tables13 13 and and14 14 present the tests of the balancing hypothesis for households that receive remittances and those that do not, using both nearest-neighbor and kernel-matching for the full sample. Table Table15 15 shows the test results for the subsample of households that had weddings celebrations. The three tables jointly show the means for the unmatched treated and control groups, the percent of initial standardized bias, t-statistics, and associated p -values for the mean difference before matching, as well as the means for the matched treated and control groups, the percent of remaining standardized bias, the percent of reduced bias, t-statistics, and associated p -value for the mean difference after matching. As the tables show, the matching method reduces bias in most of the variables.

Standardized bias before and after matching: Households with remittances and without remittances as a source of income; nearest-neighbor matching (two neighbors)

Standardized bias before and after matching: Households with remittances and without remittances as a source of income; bi-weight kernel matching

“Tables 16 and and17 17 in Appendix” present the pseudo-R − squared balance criterion, which indicates how well the explanatory variables explain the probability that the households in the two subsamples receive remittances. After matching, there should be no systematic differences in the distribution of regressors between the groups, so the pseudo-R − squared should be lower, which Tables Tables16 16 and and17 17 confirm.

Pseudo- R 2 balance statistics before and after matching

As a further robustness check, we also re-estimated our PSM model for expenditures exceeding UZS 500,000 with a set of covariates in the logit model where a two-sample t -test check does not show significant differences in covariate means for both groups. The results are presented in “Appendix B Tables Tables18, 18 , ,19, 19 , ,20, 20 , ,21, 21 , ,22, 22 , ,23 23 and and24.” 24 .” All estimations run with regional dummies using several matching techniques—Epanenchnikov kernel, Mahalanobis distance, radius, nearest two neighbor, and bi-weight kernel. As Tables Tables20, 20 , ,21, 21 , ,22 22 and and23 23 show, the covariates are balanced in both groups after matching. Hence, no significant differences were found, which indicates that the matching procedure can balance the distribution of the relevant variables in both the control and treatment groups. It is also remarkable, as Table Table19 19 shows, all of the five matching methods indicate that households receiving remittances spend a smaller share of their budget on wedding ceremonies. Furthermore, despite operating with a rather small sample, the effect is statistically significant using most matching techniques. The values of the pseudo-R − squared are also lower after matching using each of the matching techniques, as Table Table24 24 shows.

*** p < 0.01

Propensity matching differences in household spending on wedding ceremonies as a share of total household expenditure

Sub-sample of households who held wedding celebrations. Cost of ceremonies—UZS 500,000 and more

Standardized bias before and after matching: Households with remittances and without remittances as a source of income (Epanechnikov kernel matching)

Regional dummies included

Standardized bias before and after matching: Households with remittances and without remittances as a source of income (Bi-weight kernel matching)

Standardized bias before and after matching: Households with remittances and without remittances as a source of income (Nearest two neighbors)

Standardized bias before and after matching: Households with remittances and without remittances as a source of income (Radius matching)

Conclusion and policy recommendations

International remittances have become a prominent feature in Uzbekistan’s economic landscape. In the absence of experimental data, the results of estimating the impact of remittances on household expenditures are ambiguous. Although we observe households that receive remittances and others that do not, direct comparison of these two groups may be problematic because receipt of remittances may be correlated with unobserved characteristics. We apply PSM methodology to the GIZ/World Bank household survey data to investigate the impact of remittances on household expenditures in Uzbekistan. When we control for factors that influence remittances, we find that households in Uzbekistan that receive remittances spend a significantly smaller portion of their budgets on wedding celebrations, a type of conspicuous consumption, than do households that do not receive remittances. Whereas previous research finds some evidence of wasting remittances on conspicuous consumption, the present study finds empirical evidence of a lower propensity of remittance recipients to engage in this kind of spending.

Spending on traditional ceremonies can be viewed positively, as these ceremonies cement social bonds and forge connections, serving as part of individuals’ informal coping strategies for meeting their needs (Urinboyev and Svensson 2013 ). However, weddings in Central Asia are commonly used to demonstrate a family’s status and compete with other households, resulting in reduced social cohesion and forcing a family into destitution (Bloch et al. 2004 ; Rao 2001 ).

Our results indicate that migration and remittances impact household expenditures not only materially by lifting budget constraints but also by transforming social norms and values. It appears that we observe what Carling ( 2014 ) termed “generic and migration-induced” aspects of remittances. Since remitters are the breadwinners, they are in a privileged situation relative to recipients and influence household spending patterns, confirming Carling ( 2014 ) conclusion that transnational relationships are rarely symmetrical.

Our research’s findings suggest that the differences in wealth, savings, and consumption gaps between remittance recipients and non-recipients require further investigation, particularly in why there are such differences in households’ consumption behavior. For example, remittance-receiving households may spend less on wedding ceremonies because they may have less social capital in Uzbekistan when a household member is working outside the country. Alternatively, migrant-receiving countries' economic environment features may result in migrants’ developing different spending priorities, perhaps earmarking their remittances for a specific expenditure or investment item, and monitoring their use, indicating mental accounting in spending behavior. Households that receive remittances may also prioritize their expenditures differently, so they can no longer consider themselves part of the reference group in Uzbekistan, weakening the influence of the institutional setting and traditions on these households’ spending behavior. Finally, all or some of these factors may be at play at the same time.

See Tables Tables9, 9 , ,10, 10 , ,11, 11 , ,12, 12 , ,13, 13 , ,14, 14 , ,15, 15 , ,16, 16 , and and17Table 17

Propensity matching differences in household spending using Mahalanobis-matching, at caliper = 0.1

The results of matching on alternative specification

See Tables Tables18, 18 , ,19, 19 , ,20, 20 , ,21, 21 , ,22, 22 , ,23 23 and and24 24 .

Declarations

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

1 All descriptive statistics tables in this paper show that the sample size varies from one variable to the next and that the number of observations in the regressions is lower than the highest observations in the descriptive statistics tables because of missing values.

2 Results are available from the authors.

3 The black market for foreign exchange in Uzbekistan was the most applicable exchange rate at that time.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Jakhongir Kakhkharov, Email: [email protected] .

Muzaffarjon Ahunov, Email: rk.ca.ttocidne@vonuham .

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April 30, 2024

Some people spend more and some spend less for wedding parties, birthday parties, and other

“some people spend more and some spend less for wedding parties, birthday parties, and other celebrations. is it a waste of money or a social requirement include specific details and examples to support your choice.”, sample answer:.

Celebrations such as weddings, birthdays, and other social events are an integral part of human culture and have been practiced for centuries. The amount of money spent on these events varies greatly from person to person, and there is often debate about whether this expenditure is a waste of money or a social requirement. In my opinion, the amount of money spent on such celebrations is a personal choice and can vary based on individual circumstances and cultural traditions.

For some people, spending a large sum of money on a wedding or birthday party is seen as a way to create lasting memories and show their love and appreciation for their friends and family. These individuals may prioritize the experience and the joy it brings to their loved ones over the financial cost. For example, in some cultures, weddings are elaborate and extravagant affairs that are seen as a way to honor the union of two families and create a sense of community and belonging. In these cases, the money spent is not seen as a waste, but rather as a necessary investment in maintaining social ties and traditions.

On the other hand, there are those who believe that spending exorbitant amounts of money on celebrations is unnecessary and wasteful. They argue that the same level of happiness and joy can be achieved with a more modest budget, and that the focus should be on the quality of the experience rather than the quantity of money spent. For instance, a simple and intimate wedding or birthday celebration can be just as meaningful and enjoyable as a lavish and expensive event, without the financial burden.

In conclusion, the amount of money spent on wedding parties, birthday parties, and other celebrations is a personal choice that is influenced by individual values, cultural traditions, and financial means. While some may view it as a waste of money, others see it as a social requirement. Ultimately, the decision should be based on what brings joy and meaning to the individuals involved, rather than external expectations or societal pressures.

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How much will the average wedding cost in 2022? The answer, according to key findings in Zola’s The First Look Report 2022, depends. Of the couples surveyed, 28% said they are budgeting between $10k to $20k for the big day. As a whole, however, couples are willing to pay anywhere from $5k to over $100k this year.

Nearly 2.5 million weddings are expected to occur this year in the United States. Some of these couples might stick to a budget while others will go all out on every aspect of the wedding planning process.

GOBankingRates takes a closer look at key wedding expenses, and where couples may choose to either splurge or save on aspects of their wedding day .

There are a few clever ways couples can get around spending a significant amount of money on wedding attire. You can shop for or rent secondhand or pre-owned gowns, some of which may be as inexpensive as $50. Other options for affordable wedding attire include shopping sample sales and starting your dress or suit shopping during off-season times of the year, like during Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Some couples, however, have a very specific vision of how they would like to dress on their big day and are comfortable going outside their budget for it. According to The First Look Report 2022, 47% of respondents said they would spend more money on their wedding attire. The sky’s the limit for those who do plan to splurge on their wedding look, with couture wedding gowns starting at $40k and up.

There are plenty of ways to save and spend when it comes to your wedding floral arrangements. High-end weddings may decide to hire a florist. The florist will assist in arrangements for the wedding party as well as any reception centerpieces or floral arrangements presented during the wedding ceremony. The starting rate for a professional florist is $2,500, although this rate may differ depending on the florist and their going rates.

Couples seeking to save extra money on flowers may choose to DIY their own arrangements. Flowers may be purchased in bulk, like carnations for $80, from a trusted wholesaler. Couples, and even members of the wedding party, can DIY these floral arrangements with the help of YouTube tutorials. Can’t afford bulk flowers? Try dried flowers or silk flowers for a long-lasting bouquet that is easier to work with and won’t spoil.

Invitations

Key findings from The First Look Report reveal 86% of couples plan to invite more than 100 people to their wedding this year. Inviting more than 100 people to a wedding requires creating and sending out a lot of Save the Dates, formal invitations, RSVPs, envelopes and stamps. A timeline should also be carefully factored in to ensure guests receive the invitation in the mail and have enough time to respond.

Lavish weddings may plan to spare no cost when it comes to wedding invitations. Invitations may be engraved, a process which starts at $2,200 for a set of 100 invitations. Couples may also consider hiring calligraphers for beautiful handwriting.

Don’t quite have this much money, or time, to set aside on wedding day invitations? Katie Brownstein, wedding expert at Joy , said sending online invitations can shave hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars off wedding budgets. This includes sending online Save the Dates, invitations, eCards and collecting RSVPs digitally.

Venues make up the top three aspects of a wedding couples are most willing to splurge on, according to The First Look Report. Venues rank at 55% while an open bar takes 60% and a photographer, at 73%, is the number one splurge for 2022 weddings.

As with the overall question of how much couples are spending on weddings this year, the answer absolutely depends when it comes to a venue. Some couples will opt for a smaller ceremony in their own backyard or at a courthouse. Others may go all out at a private club for a massive big day bash or even pick a smaller venue which holds sentimental value to them like a botanical garden.

Whichever option you choose, both give engaged couples the opportunity to joyfully celebrate their love for one another in the company of loved ones.

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Do migrant remittances affect household spending? Focus on wedding expenditures

Published: 13 November 2021
Volume 63 , pages 979–1028, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

Jakhongir Kakhkharov ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4004-3043 1 &
Muzaffarjon Ahunov ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2073-3220 2

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Squandering Remittances Income in Conspicuous Consumption?

Internal Remittances, Household Welfare, Spending Patterns and Labour Supply: A Study from Rural Areas of Hailakhandi District of South Assam

International remittances and household expenditure patterns in Tamil Nadu

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

2 Literature review

3 Data description and methodology

Table 1 demonstrates the descriptive statistics, which shows that 28% (404 out of 1432) of households received remittances and that about 78% of those households had a migrant laborer in another country. Footnote 1 Therefore, it appears that it is predominantly households with migrants that have access to remittances, while 22% of households may be receiving remittances from extended family members, friends, or distant relatives. The mean household size is greater for households that receive remittances than households that do not (6.28 individuals vs. 5.49), which may signify a high dependency ratio that drives labor migrants out of Uzbekistan in search of higher income to support dependents. The share of household members aged 60 and older is higher among households that do not receive remittances and do not have labor migrants. Perhaps in the absence of an adequate public aged-care system in Uzbekistan, the younger generation usually takes care of the older generation. Young people with no old age people in their household may be free to travel abroad. The share of employed individuals (in all types of jobs) is lower among remittance-receiving households, probably because these households send migrants to work in other countries. In addition, 74% of the remittance-receiving households are in rural areas, so labor migration in Uzbekistan originates primarily from rural Uzbekistan, where traditions and rituals are likely to be especially entrenched. Households that receive remittances also have less higher education, so most laborers from Uzbekistan go abroad to do unskilled works (UNDP 2008 ). More than 40% of household members work in the occasional, temporary, or informal sector.

3.2 Methodology

4 Results and tests

4.1 results.

Table 2 compares the means of household expenditures, in logs of Uzbek soums, as a share of total expenditures and a percentage of total income for households that receive remittances and those that do not. The results indicate that households that receive remittances have higher income and spend more on large items of household consumption (car maintenance, home improvement, small electric items, and appliances), clothing & footwear, and ambulatory health care. Other differences are insignificant both economically and statistically.

Table 2 shows that the income of remittance recipients is twice their expenditures, whereas the income of households without remittances exceeds their expenditures by only 61%. What’s more, households that do not receive remittances spend a larger share of their total expenditure budgets and a larger share of their total income on food and non-food items. In comparison, remittance recipients spend a larger share of both on large items of household consumption. In addition, households that do not receive remittances spend a greater share of their income on wedding gifts than those that receive remittances. The share of income they spend on traditional ceremonies in their income is also greater, but this is only statistically significant at a ten percent confidence level.

Propensity scores are calculated from the logit model presented in Table 3 and estimated for households that receive part of their income from remittances. The dependent variable is a binary variable that equals 1 when a household receives remittances and 0 otherwise.

The explanatory power of the logit model for receipt of remittances is good, as the pseudo-R-squared is 45%. The most significant determinant of remittances is past migration experience, self-employment of household members, and a married status of the head of household. The finding that migration experience increases the likelihood that a household receives remittances is consistent with Clément ( 2011 ) results. The presence of self-employed members in the household is negatively related to receipt of remittances, perhaps because migration and self-employment are substitute activities. The probability that a household receives remittances decreases if the household head is married, possibly because having an additional adult increases income and decreases the need for migration-related remittances. This interpretation is confirmed by analyzing the variation in household composition presented in Table 1 with descriptive statistics. Although the descriptive statistics indicate that half of the households are multi-generational, in only 29% of households receiving remittances, the head of the household is retired. For households not receiving remittances, this indicator stands at 37%. Juraev ( 2012 ) survey of 150 migrants also indicates that having an additional member in a family who has a monthly income increases the likelihood of migration by decreasing the family's financial burden shared with someone else. The statistically significant result for self-employed households and borderline-significant result for married heads of household indicate that migrating to send remittances home is primarily a strategy for coping with unemployment and relative poverty in Uzbekistan.

Table 4 shows that households that receive remittances spend more on large non-food items (e.g., car maintenance, home improvements, small electric appliances). They spend less on food and basic non-food household items (e.g., cosmetics, personal care, household supplies). There is also evidence that remittances increase the share of healthcare expenditures and formal education, although the education expenditures account for a small portion of the households’ budgets. These effects confirm that migration and its associated remittances are not a strategy for meeting basic needs for most households. As to expenditures on wedding ceremonies, the difference in the proportion of household budgets spent on traditional ceremonies (e.g., marriage, birth, funeral) is small and statistically insignificant, perhaps because data at hand show total expenditure on traditional ceremonies, but not on weddings specifically. In other words, expenditures on weddings are not reported separately from those on smaller ceremonies, such as birthdays.

To isolate expenditures on wedding ceremonies, we filtered the sample by the minimum expenditure required to conduct a wedding ceremony based on the observation that weddings are the costliest type of traditional ceremony (Ilkhamov 2013 ) and separated a subsample of households that held weddings in the year before when the survey was conducted. To accomplish this filtering, we used data from the Social Development Research Cooperation Project (SDRC), which was conducted in Uzbekistan in 2001, and surveyed households on the cost of wedding ceremonies. Respondents in the SDRC project reported that the minimum wedding costs were US$ 170 in Fergana city and neighboring rural areas in 2001. Considering the dollar inflation rate of about 3% annually, the minimum cost of a wedding party in 2012 (the year when the Labor Skills Survey was conducted in Uzbekistan) was about US$200. The local currency equivalent of this dollar amount at the prevailing curb Footnote 3 market foreign exchange rate in 2012 was about UZS (Uzbek soums) 500,000, so this amount was used as a filter to select the households that conducted wedding ceremonies. Other ceremonies included in this expenditure item in the survey (funerals events) cost much less (Ilkhamov 2013 ). We also considered the possibility that households may have conducted two modest wedding ceremonies. However, the survey data show that only 5% of households spend more than UZS 1,000,000 (sufficient for two modest wedding ceremonies) on traditional ceremonies.

The descriptive statistics for the subsample that held wedding celebrations are shown in Table 5 . The table shows that the characteristics of this subsample are broadly similar to those of the total sample.

Table 6 compares the means of household expenditures in logs of Uzbek soums as a share of total expenditures and as a percentage of total income for households that receive remittances and those that do not for the subsample of households that held wedding celebrations. This subsample’s expenditure patterns are similar to those of the entire sample. Households that receive remittances have higher incomes and spend more on large items of household consumption than households that do not receive remittances.

Table 7 shows the results of estimating the determinants of households whose income includes remittances for the small subsample of households that had wedding ceremonies. Once more, the estimates are broadly similar to the logit model results for the full sample.

Table 8 reports the main results of this study–the treatment effects for households that held wedding ceremonies. The subsample consists of 163 households that conducted wedding ceremonies (107 non-recipients of remittances and 56 recipients), so bi-weight kernel matching is not used because the likelihood of bad matches increases substantially with the decreased size of the sample. We use nearest-neighbor matching limited to two neighbors to increase the quality of the match. Contrary to our expectations, the results show that the treatment group allocates a significantly smaller share of household budgets to wedding ceremonies—10.62% versus 19.93%—and this result is statistically significant. Estimations for this subsample indicate that remittance-receiving households allocate a larger share of their expenditures to large non-food consumption items than households that do not receive remittances (10.4% vs. 3.66%). The results also show that the treatment group spends less on pre-school education, perhaps because of the loss of a family member to migration and preparations for wedding ceremonies with a smaller number of adults than the control group. Hospitalization expenditures are also smaller for remittance-receiving households, perhaps because of higher expenditures for ambulatory health care in the treatment group, which may lower the need for hospitalization. Although the coefficient for this expenditure is not statistically significant in this subsample, it is borderline significant in the full sample.

Since the data on wedding expenses focus on the amount estimated from another survey, this may result in measurement error in the outcome variable. Therefore, to show the robustness of our estimations, we used alternative cut-off points and re-ran the regressions for expenditures exceeding UZS 400,000 and UZS 600,000. The results are presented in “Tables 9 and 10 in Appendix” for the respective cut-off amounts. Even though the results are statistically less significant, both tables indicate that households receiving remittances spend a smaller share of their budget on wedding ceremonies.

To test the robustness of our results to using alternative matching methods, we also applied radius and Mahalanobis distance matching techniques. The results are reported in “Tables 11 and 12 in Appendix,” and both indicate that households receiving remittances spend a smaller part of their budget on wedding ceremonies. The effect is statistically significant using the Mahalanobis distance matching.

4.2 Common support and balancing tests

If the propensity scores of large numbers of remittance-recipient households lie outside the boundaries of the distribution of propensity scores for non-recipients, evaluation bias, also known as the failure of common support, maybe at work (Heckman et al. 1997 ). Figures 1 and 2 plot the propensity scores to check for the overlap and the region of common support between households that receive remittances and those that do not in the PSM models estimated in this study. The figures show that the overlap between the two groups of households is small when they have high propensity scores, so the nearest neighbor with replacement provides the best matches. However, at lower propensity scores, where some households receive remittances, the overlap is large, so the nearest-neighbor with replacement is probably too restrictive and likely to produce larger standard errors than bi-weight kernel-matching would. Caliendo and Kopeinig ( 2008 ) also note that the common support condition is more important for kernel-matching than the nearest-neighbor matching because kernel-matching uses all untreated observations to estimate the missing counterfactual outcome while only the closest neighbor is used in the nearest-neighbor matching. Figures 1 and 2 show that the number of households that fall outside the common support region is small, so failure of common support does not pose a significant problem.

Overlap in propensity scores of households with remittances and control group. Full sample

Overlap in propensity scores of households with remittances and control group. Sub-sample of households who held wedding celebrations

The results of standardized bias checks are shown in “Tables 13 , 14 and 15 in Appendix.” Tables 13 and 14 present the tests of the balancing hypothesis for households that receive remittances and those that do not, using both nearest-neighbor and kernel-matching for the full sample. Table 15 shows the test results for the subsample of households that had weddings celebrations. The three tables jointly show the means for the unmatched treated and control groups, the percent of initial standardized bias, t-statistics, and associated p -values for the mean difference before matching, as well as the means for the matched treated and control groups, the percent of remaining standardized bias, the percent of reduced bias, t-statistics, and associated p -value for the mean difference after matching. As the tables show, the matching method reduces bias in most of the variables.

“Tables 16 and 17 in Appendix” present the pseudo-R − squared balance criterion, which indicates how well the explanatory variables explain the probability that the households in the two subsamples receive remittances. After matching, there should be no systematic differences in the distribution of regressors between the groups, so the pseudo-R − squared should be lower, which Tables 16 and 17 confirm.

As a further robustness check, we also re-estimated our PSM model for expenditures exceeding UZS 500,000 with a set of covariates in the logit model where a two-sample t -test check does not show significant differences in covariate means for both groups. The results are presented in “Appendix B Tables 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 and 24 .” All estimations run with regional dummies using several matching techniques—Epanenchnikov kernel, Mahalanobis distance, radius, nearest two neighbor, and bi-weight kernel. As Tables 20 , 21 , 22 and 23 show, the covariates are balanced in both groups after matching. Hence, no significant differences were found, which indicates that the matching procedure can balance the distribution of the relevant variables in both the control and treatment groups. It is also remarkable, as Table 19 shows, all of the five matching methods indicate that households receiving remittances spend a smaller share of their budget on wedding ceremonies. Furthermore, despite operating with a rather small sample, the effect is statistically significant using most matching techniques. The values of the pseudo-R − squared are also lower after matching using each of the matching techniques, as Table 24 shows.

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College of Business, Government and Law, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

Jakhongir Kakhkharov

Endicott College of International Studies, Woosong University Jayang-Dong, Dong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea

Muzaffarjon Ahunov

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See Tables 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , and 17

1.1 The results of matching on alternative specification

See Tables 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 and 24 .

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Kakhkharov, J., Ahunov, M. Do migrant remittances affect household spending? Focus on wedding expenditures. Empir Econ 63 , 979–1028 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-021-02163-8

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Received : 20 March 2021

Accepted : 19 October 2021

Published : 13 November 2021

Issue Date : August 2022

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SOS! My Wedding Is 3 Months Away and I Still Don’t Have a Dress

By Nicole Kliest

Image may contain Audrey Hepburn Flower Flower Arrangement Flower Bouquet Plant Clothing Dress and Fashion

As I type this, it’s been four weeks and five days since I first developed an eyelid twitch. After misdiagnosing myself with Bell’s palsy and then a stroke, my friend’s husband, an actual optometrist, reported back that it was probably just Myokymia brought on by stress. (“Everyone in New York City is stressed—plus, you’re planning a wedding.”) So for the last 33 days, whenever I have a conversation that lasts longer than 60 seconds—the approximate cadence in between spasms—I abruptly look away or tap the corner of my eye as though I am deep in thought, when really I’m just tamping down my fluttering anxiety.

I never wanted to be the person who penned a personal essay about wedding stress. To toot my own horn here for a brief moment: the consistent piece of feedback I receive from friends and acquaintances that makes me feel good about myself is that I am a so-called ‘chill’ person. A trait that living in New York City for nearly a decade has surely started to chisel away at, but nonetheless a core component of my personality that I cling to. Right now, though, there is a question that sends me into an uncharacteristic, decidedly not chill panic: have you found a dress yet?

I’m aware—world’s tiniest violin—that finding a wedding dress can be stressful. I’m not winning any sympathy or novelty awards here. But when confronted with the pressure to encapsulate your entire essence into one single dress, how can one possibly choose? I want to express a multitude of emotions that somehow feel in conflict with each other when distilled into clothing form. Sexy but soft, whimsical but practical, sleek yet complex… buying a wedding dress feels like a torturous practice in self-expression, one in which you must pigeonhole yourself into what type of bride you are and are not. Am I a Cecilie Bahnsen ballerina bride? Perhaps a bow-bedecked Sandy Liang lady? An elegant Khaite woman? A bold Bernadette character? Maybe even a Molly Goddard muse? Honestly—all of the above!

At the risk of sounding hokey, I had hoped a dress that embodied the unique facets of my personality would emerge. A tendency to buck tradition, quietly creative, a little bit romantic, not too dramatic, and with a predilection for nostalgia. But as I continue my search, no garment hits all the marks.

Of course, I could just cease my whining, pick a dress, and be done with it. But there’s the rub—I haven’t. I can’t? I can’t! In waiting for the one to grace my laptop screen and sweep me off my feet, I’ve managed to find myself three months out from my wedding with absolutely nothing to wear. (Save for the pair of Neous strappy heels that I chose a month after getting engaged. No brainer there!)

Conventional bridal rule of thumb says you should purchase your wedding dress eight to nine months out from your wedding. I got engaged in March of 2023 and will wed in August of this year, which gave me ample time to sort it out. But as timeline markers came—and went—I began to realize there was an issue. At this point, if I even stepped foot inside a bridal salon, I presume my three-month deadline would give the team a conniption.

And this isn’t procrastination, dear reader, I’ve been looking consistently for over a year now to no avail. On one recent day when my bum eye was experiencing a particularly furious set of twitches and I had to return yet another dress to UPS that didn’t work out, I did something out of character: I took to Instagram. “Do I know any other brides who put off buying their dress til the last minute because they can’t find anything they like? Just me?” The responses flooded in almost immediately.

“Literally me. Didn’t have my dress until two weeks before the day.”

“Omg yes and then everything was like ‘you need to order three months in advance’ and I was like my wedding is in 30 days…”

“I picked my shoes the night before.”

“I got something cheap and ended up tailoring it to my needs because I couldn’t find what I wanted.”

“I ordered a dress four days before my wedding that a friend picked out for me.”

“Yes. Super overwhelming. Two weeks before my wedding I wound up getting a sundress for $65 at a little shop at the end of the street. I’m still fine with the decision and I still have the dress after 13 years of marriage.”

“That was me! I got mine the month before.”

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I was not alone in my mercurial attitude toward wedding dresses, so it seemed. Through a haphazard Instagram poll, I had unearthed a community of individuals who experienced similar struggles, and in doing so, felt a wave of relief, albeit fleeting. (I still need something to wear, lest we forget.)

I wouldn’t blame you for writing this kind of conundrum off as vapid. I get it—if your main problem in life is that you cannot find a wedding dress, you’ve got it pretty good. But it isn’t my main problem. It’s just one I didn’t expect I’d be dealing with. And one that, truly, very few brides talk about. I’ve heard countless tales of trying on that one mystical dress and bursting into tears because they just knew it was the one. I’m still tapping my foot for that epiphany to arrive.

Lamenting my lack of decisiveness over dinner with a friend the other evening, she responded succinctly: “It’s the dress you like in the moment.” A simple proverb, but profound enough. It’s the dress you like in the moment. Tastes evolve, silhouettes change, and as long as I like what I’m wearing in the moment, that’s fine enough.

If I look back at my wedding and look like a tulle cottagecore cupcake, so be it! The notion that a wedding dress must encapsulate who you are as a person feels antiquated. An appreciation for wearing a cute outfit surrounded by the people you love should be enough. (Something I never thought I’d need reminding of, but here we are.) Keeping this in mind, I’ll be self-imposing a deadline to choose a dress I like—in the moment—within the next few weeks. Wish me (and my eyelid) good luck.

IELTS sample essay: people now spend a lot of money on their wedding

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Writing Task 2: Spending money on weddings.

Some people spend a lot of money for their wedding ceremonies. However, others feel like it is unnecessary to spend a lot.

Sample Answer

How to Survive a Lavish Wedding

Start With the Invite

Know What to Wear

Have Fun With Fancy

When in Doubt, Ask

Pay Attention to the Couple, and Their Parents

Don’t Freak About Money

Remember the Etiquette Basics

Enjoy Yourself

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Do migrant remittances affect household spending? Focus on wedding expenditures

Muzaffarjon Ahunov

Introduction

Literature review

Data description and methodology

Methodology

Results and tests

Common support and balancing tests

Conclusion and policy recommendations

The results of matching on alternative specification

Declarations

Contributor Information

Some people spend more and some spend less for wedding parties, birthday parties, and other

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Difference in Wedding Costs: From Lavish to Budget

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