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Women's Rights and Development

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Author Info
Raquel Fernández

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Abstract

Why has the expansion of women's economic and political rights coincided with economic development? This paper investigates this question, focusing on a key economic right for women: property rights. The basic hypothesis is that the process of development (i.e., capital accumulation and declining fertility) exacerbated the tension in men's conflicting interests as husbands versus fathers, ultimately resolving them in favor of the latter. As husbands, men stood to gain from their privileged position in a patriarchal world whereas, as fathers, they were hurt by a system that afforded few rights to their daughters. The model predicts that declining fertility would hasten reform of women's property rights whereas legal systems that were initially more favorable to women would delay them. The theoretical relationship between capital and the relative attractiveness of reform is non-monotonic but growth inevitably leads to reform. I explore the empirical validity of the theoretical predictions by using cross-state variation in the US in the timing of married women obtaining property and earning rights between 1850 and 1920.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 15355.

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Date of creation: Sep 2009
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15355

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
N31 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
O16 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment

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  9. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2000. "Why Did The West Extend The Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, And Growth In Historical Perspective," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 115(4), pages 1167-1199, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. NILS-PETTER LAGERLÖF, 2009. "Slavery and Other Property Rights," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 76(1), pages 319-342, 01. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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