Social externalities of women empowerment: Evidence from suffrage movements of late nineteenth and early twentieth century United States
| Published date | 01 July 2023 |
| Author | Hamid Noghanibehambari,Farzaneh Noghani,Nahid Tavassoli |
| Date | 01 July 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.12353 |
268
|
Scott J Polit Econ. 2023;70:268–284.
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/sjpe
Received: 7 July 2 022
|
Accepted: 13 May 2023
DOI: 10.1111/sjpe.12353
SHORT NOTE
Social externalities of women empowerment:
Evidence from suffrage movements of late
nineteenth and early twentieth century United
States
Hamid Noghanibehambari1 | Farzaneh Noghani2 | Nahid Tavassoli3
1Center for Demo graphy of Health and
Aging, Univ ersity of Wisconsi n- Madison,
Madison, Wis consin, USA
2Departm ent of Management, Co llege of
Business, Un iversity of Hous ton- Clear Lake,
Houston, Texas, U SA
3Departm ent of Economics, Uni versity
of Wisconsin Mil waukee, Milwaukee ,
Wisconsin, USA
Correspondence
Hamid Noghanibehambari, Center
for Demogra phy of Health and Agi ng,
Universit y of Wisconsin- Madison, 1180
Observato ry Drive, Madis on, WI 53706,
USA.
Email: noghanibeham@wisc.edu
Funding information
National Ins titute on Aging, G rant/Award
Number: P3 0 AG17266
Abstract
Previous lite rature suggests that empowering women is as-
sociated with children's improved o utcomes. H owever, lit-
tle is known about its ef fects o n children's later- life crime
and incarceration. We argue that women empowerment
through suffrage law changes durin g the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries in the US generated incentives for
women to invest in t heir children's human capital . The accu-
mulated human capital then has the potential to reduce future
incarceration of children. We use full- count censuses 1920–
1930, implement a difference- in- difference framework, and
empirically show that childhood exposure to suffrage laws is
associated with considerable reductions in incarceration. The
effects appear to be primarily driven by decre ases in male
and Black incarceration. The balanci ng tes ts rule o ut th e
concern that th e effects are drive n by demographic compo-
sitional change s or endogenous change s in other state- level
characteristics. Furthermore, an event- study analysis rejects
the concern that the effects are driven by preexisting trends
in incarceration among ex posed cohorts. The findings of this
research note offer informative implications for overlooked
externalities of women emp owerment in a historical setting.
This is an open ac cess article und er the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, wh ich permits
use, distri bution and reprod uction in any medium , provided the orig inal work is properl y cited and is not used fo r commercial
purposes.
© 2023 The Autho rs. Scottish Journal of Political Economy publishe d by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on b ehalf of Scottish Eco nomic
Soci ety.
|
269
NOGHANIBEHAMBARI et al.
1 | INTRODUCTION
Several st reams of researc h in various s ettings documen t that empowering women through conventional legal sys-
tem channe ls such as suf frage reforms or community behavior channels leads to hig her investment i n children and
improvement in their outcomes (Bozzano, 2017; Duflo, 2012; Homan, 2017; Kose et al., 2021; Nobles et al., 2010). For
ins tan ce, Kos e et al. (2021) ex ploi t the sp ace– time va riat ions in suff rage laws in th e late ni nete enth and ear ly twe ntie th
centur y United Stat es and show that ch ildren expo sed to suffr age reveal impr ovements in e ducation an d future labo r
market outcome s. They argue that a large portion of observed improvem ents can be expla ined by suffrage- induced
growt h in public scho ol spending . Carruth ers and Wanama ker (2015) show that female voter enfranchisement during
the early part of th e twentieth century was resp onsible for about one third of incre ases in public education spe nding
between 1920 an d 1940. Furthermore, s everal strands of s tudies document po sitive relationships b etween political
empowerment of women an d children's health outcomes, in cluding immunization sta tus (Swiss et al., 2012), child nu-
tritional st atus (Santoso et al., 2019), and chil d mortality rates (Mille r, 2008; Moehling & Thomasson, 2012).
On the other hand , studies show that childhood cond itions are important d eterminants of later- life outcomes
(Almond et al., 2018; Case et al., 2005; Currie, 2009; Goodman- Bacon, 2021b; Hayward & Gorman, 2004; Jayachandran
& Lleras- Muney, 2009). For ins tance, there is evidence that childhood health endowm ent, human c apital accumu-
lation, and education can inf luence cr iminal be havior and determine incarce ration ou tcomes (A kee et al., 2014;
Åslund et al., 2018; Campaniello et al., 2 016; C halfin & Deza, 2 019; Cook & Kang, 2 016; Fel la & Ga llipoli, 2 014;
Garces et al., 2002; He & Barkowski, 2020; Lochne r & Mor etti, 2004; Machin e t al., 2 011; Noghanibehambari &
Tavassoli, 2022; Wen et al., 2017 ). For i nstance, Bailey et al. (20 19) explore the effect s of the Hea d Start progr am
and pu blic sch ool spe nding du ring K- 12 edu cation on later- life outco mes. Th ey find th at Head St art is as sociat ed with
increases in education and earnings and reductions in incarceration. Moreover, the effects of Head Start are larger
when they are accompanied by rises in K- 12 school spending. Noghanibehambari (2022) explores the direct link be-
twee n public scho ol spendi ng and juveni le crime rat es. The auth or argues that increa ses in schoo l spending generate
incentives a mong students to finish high sc hool. The higher expected (futu re) wage premium re sulting from high er
education incr eases the opportunit y cost of crime and leads to lower juvenil e crime rates.
Taking these streams of research together, one would expect that there are potential intergenerational ex-
ternalities in women empowerment, specifically for later- life criminal behavior. However, the empirical literature
is limite d in this aspect of the resea rch. This is unfortunate because looking at the long- run effects of political
empowerment of wome n can stimulate more actions aim ing at reducing gender inequali ty at the societal level. As
empowering w omen reverberates through generatio ns, often the g reatest gains will not be seen if one does not
expand one's view point.
To fi ll thi s gap , we exp lor e the as soc iati on be twe en chi ldh ood ex pos ure to suff rag e laws as a sou rce of women
empowerment that incentivizes mo thers to invest mo re in their childr en's human capital on later- life incarcera-
tion. The suf frage movement in the United States, which start ed with a women's rights convent ion in New York
in July of 1848 an d resulted in the ratif ication of women's right to vote in 1920, was accompanied by si gnificant
exogenous variation in the timin g of sta te- level extension of suffr age rights to women. To test th e effects of
women emp owerment throug h suffrage laws on later- life incarceration of children, we employ a large dataset
KEYWORDS
crime, exter nality, historical data , incarceration, poli tical
economy, racial gap, su ffrage, women empower ment
JEL CLASSIFI CATION
J18, K42, N41, N42, P48
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