Women’s rights and economic development are highly correlated.
Today, the discrepancy between the legal rights of women and men
is much larger in developing compared with developed countries.
Historically, even in countries that are now rich, women had few
rights before economic development took off. Is development the
cause of expanding women’s rights, or conversely, do women’s
rights facilitate development? We argue that there is truth to both
hypotheses. The literature on the economic consequences of women’s
rights documents that more rights for women lead to more spending
on health and children, which should benefit development. The
political-economy literature on the evolution of women’s rights finds
that technological change increased the costs of patriarchy for men
and thus contributed to the expansion of women’s rights. Combining
these perspectives, we discuss the theory of Doepke & Tertilt
(2009), who find that an increase in the return to human capital
induces men to vote for women’s rights, which in turn promotes
growth in human capital and income per capita.
Dieser Eintrag ist Teil der Universitätsbibliographie.
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