Working Paper: NBER ID: w20864
Authors: Celeste K. Carruthers; Marianne H. Wanamaker
Abstract: Gains in 20th century real wages and reductions in the black-white wage gap have been linked to the mid-century ascent of school quality. With a new dataset uniquely appropriate to identifying the impact of female voter enfranchisement on education spending, we attribute up to one-third of the 1920-1940 rise in public school expenditures to the Nineteenth Amendment. Yet the continued disenfranchisement of black southerners meant white school gains far outpaced those for blacks. As a result, women’s suffrage exacerbated racial inequality in education expenditures and substantially delayed relative gains in black human capital observed later in the century.
Keywords: women's suffrage; public education; racial inequality; education spending
JEL Codes: H75; I24; N32
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Women's suffrage (J16) | Public school expenditures (H52) |
| Increase in white female population share (J19) | Increase in per-pupil spending (H52) |
| Women's suffrage (J16) | Racial disparity in education funding (I24) |
| Women's suffrage (J16) | Greater education expenditures overall (H52) |
| Greater education expenditures overall (H52) | Relative decline in the quality of education for black students (I24) |