Maternal Mortality and Women's Political Participation

Joseph Gomes, Sonia Bhalotra, Damian Clarke and Atheendar Venkataramani

No 14339, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Millions of women continue to die during and soon after childbirth, even where the knowledge and resources to avoid this are available. We posit that raising the share of women in parliament can trigger action. Leveraging the timing of gender quota legislation across developing countries, we identify sharp sustained reductions of 8-10 percent in maternal mortality. Investigating mechanisms, we find that gender quotas lead to increases in percentage points of 5-8 in skilled birth attendance and 4-8 in prenatal care utilization, alongside a decline in fertility of 6-7 percent and an increase in the schooling of young women of about 0.5 years. The results are robust to numerous robustness checks. They suggest a new policy tool for tackling maternal mortality.

Keywords: Maternal mortality; Women's political representation; Gender; Quotas; Reproductive health services; Fertility; Schooling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I15 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Maternal mortality and women’s political participation (2021)
Working Paper: Maternal Mortality and Women's Political Participation (2018)
Working Paper: Maternal mortality and women's political participation (2018)
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