Women's Enfranchisement and Children's Education: The Long-Run Impact of the U.S. Suffrage Movement

Esra Kose, Elira Kuka and Na'ama Shenhav

No 10148, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: While a growing literature has shown that empowering women leads to increased short-term investments in children, little is known about its long-term effects. We investigate the effect of women's political empowerment on children's human capital accumulation by exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in U.S. state and federal suffrage laws. We estimate that exposure to women's suffrage during childhood leads to large increases in educational attainment for children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, in particular blacks and Southern whites. An investigation into the mechanisms behind these effects suggests that the educational gains are plausibly driven by the rise in public expenditures following suffrage.

Keywords: suffrage; women empowerment; education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 N32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2016-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-his, nep-pke and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published - published as 'Women's Suffrage and Children's Education' in: American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2021, 13 (3), 374 - 405

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10148

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