Technological change and women’s rights

In general, women in rich countries enjoy gender equality while those in poor countries suffer substantial discrimination. A recent column at VoxEU.org proposes an explanation for the relationship between economic development and female empowerment that emphasises changes in the incentives males face rather than shifts in moral sentiment. Technological change that raises demand for human capital may give men a stake in women's rights.

The column, "Women's rights: What's in it for men?", by Matthias Doepke and Michèle Tertilt notes that today most rich countries have greater levels of gender equality than poor countries and asks, What, if anything, can development policy do to close the gap in gender equality between rich and poor countries?

The authors point out that

When today’s rich countries were still poor, the state of women’s rights in these countries was just as bleak as it is in the poorest countries today. For example, until the mid-nineteenth century, women in England and the United States lost all their civil rights upon marriage. Husbands had full control over their wives’ property and earnings, only men could obtain a divorce, and married women did not have any rights with respect to their legitimate children.

They go on to say

The situation improved only in the second half of the nineteenth century, when England and the United States started a series of reforms that ultimately led to the modern state of equality before the law. The rapid advance of women’s rights in today’s rich countries suggests that it is not some immutable cultural reason that explains cross-country differences in gender equality, but an interaction of women’s rights with the development process itself.

The column asks the question, Why did men decide to share power with women? The answer that Doepke and Tertilt give is

The main reforms of women’s rights during the nineteenth century reduced the power of husbands within the household. At the beginning of the century, husbands were still patriarchs with full control over their families’ affairs. By 1900, power was shared almost equally (at least according to the letter of the law) between husbands and wives.

At face value, granting rights to women implied a weakening of men’s rights. Yet it was men who put all the reform laws into place. Why? Our argument is that, from a man’s perspective, there is a trade-off between the rights of his own wife and the rights of other men’s wives. More female bargaining power cuts the share of household consumption that husbands can claim for themselves, which men don’t like. But at the same time, women tend to attach more weight to the well-being of children than men do, which implies that more bargaining power for women also means greater investments in their children’s human capital.

Husbands don’t gain directly from their wives having more bargaining power, so ideally men would prefer their own wives to have no rights. But since boosting women’s bargaining power increases human-capital investment in children, men might gain from other women having rights in two ways. First, men are altruistic towards their own children, some of which are daughters. Since men want their daughters to be treated well by their sons-in-law and they want their grandchildren to be well educated, men have a motivation to improve their daughters’ bargaining position. Second, a father prefers his children to find high-quality mates, and therefore stands to gain from building the human capital of his future children-in-law through their mothers.

Doepke and Tertilt then go on to discuss the link between human capital and technological change. Their basic point being that

In England and the United States, we claim, the ultimate cause of the expansion of women’s rights throughout the nineteenth century was technological change that increased the demand for human capital.

Such a demand, in Doepke and Tertilt's view, raised the importance of education and changed the trade-off between the rights of ones own wife and those of other men's wives.

When the return to education increases, finding well-educated spouses for one's children becomes a bigger concern. Similarly, a rising return to education increases fathers’ concern about the rights of their daughters, because the daughters’ marital bargaining power matters for the grandchildren’s education.

Doepke and Tertilt go on to explain that

Our theory suggests that the historical advance of women’s rights in the West wasn’t due to a sudden enlightenment of mankind after millennia of patriarchy. Rather, it was driven by old-fashioned self-interest deriving from men’s concern about their daughters’ welfare and their descendants’ education. [...]

From the perspective of the theory, what matters for the advance of women’s rights is the demand for human capital.

The upside to this is that

If our theory is correct, it implies that men in today’s developing countries can be given a stake in women’s rights. Ultimately, inducing developing countries to improve women’s rights on their own accord may be a more promising strategy than trying to impose gender equality from the outside.

and it is argued that

Governments can further the cause of women’s rights by focusing on policies that increase families’ incentives to educate their children. Examples of such policies include public health programs for children, high-quality public education, and subsidies for families who keep their children in school. These policies can change men’s attitudes toward female empowerment, helping to create a broader coalition in favour of expanding women’s rights.