Technology Adoption and Women’s Rights: Evidence from Switzerland

Björn Brey (), Edoardo Cefalá () and Cecilia García-Peñalosa ()
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Björn Brey: Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Postal: NHH, Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway, https://sites.google.com/view/bjoernbrey/home
Edoardo Cefalá: Dept. of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Postal: WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics, Building D4, 2nd floor, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria, https://sites.google.com/view/edoardocefala
Cecilia García-Peñalosa: The National Centre for Scientific Research, Aix Marseille School of Economics, Postal: Aix-Marseille School of Economics, 5-9 boulevard Bourdet, 13001 Marseille, France, https://sites.google.com/view/ceciliagarciapenalosa

No 3/2026, Discussion Paper Series in Economics from Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics

Abstract: Gender equality and economic growth have historically tended to move together yet identifying causal effects has been difficult. This paper uses data on the support for female suffrage in Switzerland in order to explore the impact of technology adoption on gender norms. We argue that the early adoption of electricity was conducive to local economic development, which in turn led to more egalitarian views on gender. To identify causality, we exploit geographic differences in the potential to generate electricity from waterpower. Our results show that early electricity adoption (by the 1910s) had a lasting impact on municipality vote shares in support of female suffrage in the groundbreaking 1959 referendum. We complement this finding with Cantonal referendums on female voting rights and federal electoral results to show that higher support for female political participation is observed in the data since the 1920s. We then examine how technology may have shaped gender attitudes and find that increased educational investment explains part of the shift. Fertility appears to respond to changing gender norms and reinforce them, but is unlikely the keymechanism in the causal chain.

Keywords: Technological change; industrialization; womens rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 N33 O14 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2026-02-04
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