Alberto Alesina (Harvard University)
Paola Giuliano (UCLA)
Nathan Nunn (Harvard University)
Wednesday, Jan 18, 2010
World Bank Room MC3-570, from 12:30 to 2:00 PM
Female labor force participation can be influenced by persistent differences in cultural norms about the perception of women in society. We empirically examine where these differences come from. Central to our explanation are historic differences in agricultural technologies, which generated historical differences in the organization of market versus household work along gender lines. We show that, consistent with the existing anthropological evidence, in societies with a traditional use of animal plough agriculture the division of labor is split along gender lines, with men working outside of the home in agriculture and industry, and women working within the home. We then document the persistence of these cultures over time by examining the relationship between historic plough use and contemporary female labor force participation, female participation in politics, and individuals' attitudes about the role of women. We present estimates at the ethnicity, sub-national region, and country levels. We identify the causal effect of plough technology on attitudes about women by instrumenting for the historic use of the plough with the society's endowment of geography suitable for growing crops that require plough cultivation with those that do not.
Copies of the paper can be obtained from Maribel Flewitt: pflewitt@worldbank.org
There will also be copies at the seminar.
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