Settlers and norms

The distinctive traits of early settlers at the initial stages of institutional development may be crucial for cultural formation. In 1973, cultural geographer Wilbur Zelinsky formalized this idea in his doctrine of “First Effective Settlement.” I examine this doctrine and identify its short- and long-run implications for gender norms in the United States. To capture counties at early stages of cultural and institutional development, I focus on county creation events and proxy early settlers’ gender norms using historical female labor force participation rates and women’s financial rights in their places of origin. I document the distinctive characteristics of early settler populations and provide suggestive evidence of the transmission of gender norms across space and time. The results show that women’s labor supply is higher, both in the short and long run, in United States counties that historically hosted larger foreign-born early settler populations from places with high female labor force participation. I provide evidence for four reinforcing mechanisms underlying this persistence: foundational influence during critical junctures, demographic dominance, intergenerational cultural transmission, and political dominance. Together, these findings shed new light on how immigrants’ cultural endowments can have durable effects when introduced during critical junctures of institutional formation in host societies.