Maternal Mortality and Women's Political Power

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bhalotra, Sonia; Clarke, Damian; Gomes, Joseph Flavian; Venkataramani, Atheendar
• 署名单位: University of Warwick; Universidad de Chile; Universite Catholique Louvain; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvad012
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 2172-2208
• 关键词: substantive representation; field experiment; gender quotas; HEALTH; TRENDS; education; GROWTH; WORLD; WILL

摘要

Millions of women continue to die during and soon after childbirth, even where the knowledge and resources to avoid this are available. We posit that raising the share of women in parliament can trigger action. Leveraging the timing of gender quota legislation across developing countries, we identify sharp sustained reductions of 7%-12% in maternal mortality. Investigating mechanisms, we find that gender quotas lead to increases in percentage points of 5-8 in skilled birth attendance and 4-8 in prenatal care utilization, alongside a decline in fertility of 6%-7% and an increase in the schooling of young women of about 0.5 years. The results are robust to numerous robustness checks. They suggest a new policy tool for tackling maternal mortality.