Men, women, and the ballot woman suffrage in the United States

Arbeitspapier

Woman suffrage led to the greatest enfranchisement in the history of the United States. Before World War I, however, suffrage states remained almost exclusively confined to the American West. The reasons for this pioneering role of the West are still unclear. Studying the timing of woman suffrage adoption at state level, we find that states in which women were scarce (the West) enfranchised their women much earlier than states in which the sex ratio was more balanced (the rest of the country). High sex ratios in the West, that is high ratios of grantors to grantees, reduced the political costs and risks to male electorates and legislators of extending the franchise. They are also likely to have enhanced female bargaining power and may have made woman suffrage more attractive in the eyes of western legislators that sought to attract more women to their states. Our finding of a reduced-form inverse relationship between the relative size of a group and its success in securing the ballot may be of use also for the study of other franchise extensions and for inquieries into the dynamics of political power sharing more generally.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: SFB 649 Discussion Paper ; No. 2009,016

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination ; Basic Areas of Law: General (Constitutional Law) ; Economic History: Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation: U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913 ; Economic History: Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation: U.S.; Canada: 1913-
• Thema: Woman suffrage ; democratization ; political economy ; sex ratio ; Wahlrecht ; Frauen ; Demokratisierung ; USA

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Braun, Sebastian ; Kvasnicka, Michael
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Humboldt University of Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649 - Economic Risk
• (wo): Berlin
• (wann): 2009

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/25332
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ