Women’s Suffrage and Children’s Education

While a growing literature shows that women, relative to men, prefer greater investment in children, it is unclear whether empowering women produces better economic outcomes. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation US suffrage laws, we show exposure during childhood led large increases educational attainment for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, especially Blacks and Southern Whites. We also find higher earnings alongside education gains, although not Blacks. Using newly digitized data, are primarily explained by suffrage-induced growth spending, early-life health improvements may have contributed. (JEL H75, I21, I22, J13, J15, J16, N32)