This paper studies the effects of local marriage markets on South African women’s
marital decisions. The analysis is motivated by the low proportion of married among
African mothers since 48% are never married. This means that the children of all these
never married mothers have no access to their fathers' resources. The low sex ratio of 92
men to 100 women among Africans aged 20-40 makes us believe that shortage of
marriageable men may explain marriage patterns. Economic theory predicts less
attractive marital outcomes for women when the sex ratio is low. We analyze this
hypothesis using the 2001 Census of South Africa. An ordered probit model is fitted
with the different marital type ranked from less desirable (never married) to more
attractive (married civil). The estimation results suggest that both the quantity and
quality of marriageable men matter in the marital choice of women who have at least
one child. Exposing African women to the White woman’s marriage market and the
achievement of educational levels similar to those of Whites increase their probability
of marriage by 8%, implying that only 44% of African women are expected to marry
even given good marital opportunities and improved levels of education.