The economics of women’s rights

Tertilt, Michèle, Doepke, Matthias ORCID: 0000-0001-8073-6138, Hannusch, Anne and Montenbruck, Laura (2022) The economics of women’s rights. Journal of the Economic Association, 20 (6). 2271 – 2316. ISSN 1542-4766

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Abstract

Two centuries ago, in most countries around the world, women were unable to vote, had no say over their own children or property, and could not obtain a divorce. Women have gradually gained rights in many areas of life, and this legal expansion has been closely intertwined with economic development. We aim to understand the drivers behind these reforms. To this end, we distinguish between four types of dwomen’s rights—economic, political, labor, and body—and document their evolution over the past 50 years across countries. We summarize the political-economy mechanisms that link economic development to changes in women’s rights and show empirically that these mechanisms account for a large share of the variation in women’s rights across countries and over time.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://academic.oup.com/jeea
Additional Information:	© 2022 The Authors
Divisions:	Economics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
JEL classification:	D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D13 - Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D72 - Economic Models of Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment > E24 - Macroeconomics: Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution (includes wage indexation) J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J12 - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J16 - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination N - Economic History > N3 - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Income, and Wealth > N30 - Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Income and Wealth: General, International, or Comparative (Migration) N - Economic History > N4 - Government, War, Law, and Regulation > N40 - General, International, or Comparative O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O10 - General
Date Deposited:	18 Nov 2022 16:21
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2024 00:46
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/117369

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