TY  - JOUR
AU  - Alesina, Alberto F
AU  - Giuliano, Paola
AU  - Nunn, Nathan
TI  - On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17098
PY  - 2011
Y2  - May 2011
DO  - 10.3386/w17098
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17098
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17098.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alberto F. Alesina
E-Mail: *NA user is deceased

Paola Giuliano
Anderson School of Management
UCLA
110 Westwood Plaza
C517 Entrepreneurs Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
Tel: 310/206-6890
Fax: 310/825-4011
E-Mail: paola.giuliano@anderson.ucla.edu

Nathan Nunn
Department of Economics
Harvard University
1805 Cambridge St
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/496-4958
Fax: 617/495-8570
E-Mail: nnunn@fas.harvard.edu
AB  - This paper seeks to better understand the historical origins of current differences in norms and beliefs about the appropriate role of women in society. We test the hypothesis that traditional agricultural practices influenced the historical gender division of labor and the evolution and persistence of gender norms. We find that, consistent with existing hypotheses, the descendants of societies that traditionally practiced plough agriculture, today have lower rates of female participation in the workplace, in politics, and in entrepreneurial activities, as well as a greater prevalence of attitudes favoring gender inequality. We identify the causal impact of traditional plough use by exploiting variation in the historical geo-climatic suitability of the environment for growing crops that differentially benefited from the adoption of the plough. Our IV estimates, based on this variation, support the findings from OLS. To isolate the importance of cultural transmission as a mechanism, we examine female labor force participation of second-generation immigrants living within the US.
ER  -