Join the Department of Economics for a critical discussion of determinants of women's political participation.
Speaker: Valeria Rueda, University of Nottingham
Abstract
Can women's political activism spur women's electoral participation?
Previous research identifies that women politicians facilitate other women's political participation.
Through the study of the British suffragists, we argue that women activists paved the way for other women's political participation at the time when women politicians were virtually absent.
Constructing a novel micro-level dataset of geocoded data from electoral registers, we leverage a unique historical case of the 1913 Women's Suffrage Pilgrimage.
Using a Differences-in-Differences strategy that compares polling divisions based on the proximity to the Pilgrimage across England, we provide evidence that exposure to the suffragists marching for parliamentary suffrage increased registration of women eligible to vote in local elections.
Analyzing contemporary news articles, we then document the pathways through which the suffragists incited other women's political interest and therefore electoral participation.
These findings have implications for the realization of substantive representation after suffrage.
About the speaker
Valeria Rueda is an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Economics at the University of Nottingham.
Her research interests are Development Economics, Economic History, Gender, and Political Economy.
She is particularly interested in institutional and cultural long-term determinants of inequalities.
Her work has been published in world-leading journals such as the Economic Journal, American Economic Journal Applied, and the American Political Science Review.
Attendance at City events is subject to our terms and conditions.