Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP16838
Authors: Moshe Hazan; David Weiss; Hosny Zoabi
Abstract: U.S. states gave legal and economic rights to married women between 1850 and 1920. Prior to this “women’s liberation,” married women were subject to the laws of coverture, which granted virtually unlimited power to their husbands. Using data from the full count U.S. census and contiguous county-border pairs bordering states that gave rights at different times, we use an event-study analysis to show that rights causally reduced fertility. Thus, women’s rights can help explain the demographic transition, itself one of the most profound societal changes experienced by industrializing countries. Interestingly, women’s rights were not granted retroactively, allowing us to compare people married before and after the reforms. This alternative empirical strategy confirms our findings and illuminates mechanisms. Shifting bargaining power from husband to wife with women’s rights accounts for our results, with the underlying spousal disagreement relating to maternal mortality risk. Women’s empowerment can account for about 20% of the decline in fertility during the demographic transition, and may have relevant implications for policy in today’s developing countries.
Keywords: Women's Liberation; Demographic Transition; Household Bargaining; Fertility; Property Rights; Maternal Mortality Risk
JEL Codes: D1; E02; I15; J13; K11; N31
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Rights granted (P14) | Shift in bargaining power from husbands to wives (J12) |
| Shift in bargaining power from husbands to wives (J12) | Decline in fertility due to increased maternal mortality risk concerns (J13) |
| Non-retroactive nature of rights (P14) | Differences in behavior between those married before and after the reforms (J12) |
| Rights granted (P14) | Observable behavioral shifts in fertility decisions (J13) |
| Legal empowerment of women through the granting of rights (K38) | Reduced fertility rates (J13) |
| Rights granted (P14) | Probability of giving birth decreased (J19) |