Female empowerment as a core driver of democratic development: a dynamic panel model from 1980 to 2005

We investigated the causal effects of female empowerment (female educational attainment, female labor force participation, and total fertility rates) on democratic development for 97 countries from 1980 to 2005. Using Polity IV as an indicator of levels of democracy, our results show that female emp...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wyndow, Paula, Li, Jianghong, Mattes, Eugen
Format: Journal Article
Published: Pergamon 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/9511
Description
Summary:We investigated the causal effects of female empowerment (female educational attainment, female labor force participation, and total fertility rates) on democratic development for 97 countries from 1980 to 2005. Using Polity IV as an indicator of levels of democracy, our results show that female empowerment was strongly associated with democratic development over this period. The effect of female education increased with lags of 5 and 10 years, suggesting that democracy is more likely to occur in nations with a history of educating girls and a longer experience of the social and economic conditions that have occurred because of this investment.