Gender in Language and Gender in Employment

Women lag behind men in many domains. Feminists have proposed that sex-based grammatical gender systems in languages reinforce traditional conceptions of gender roles, which in turn contribute to disadvantaging women. This article evaluates the empirical plausibility of this claim in the context of the labour market outcomes of women. Based on a sample of over 100 countries, the analysis shows that places where the majority language is gender-intensive have lower participation rates of women in the labour force. Individual level estimates further underscore this finding and indicate a higher prevalence of genderdiscriminatory attitudes among speakers of gender-intensive languages.

Gender in Language and Gender in Employment

Women lag behind men in many domains. Feminist scholars have proposed that sex-based grammatical systems in languages reinforce traditional conceptions of gender roles, which in turn contribute to disadvantaging women. This article evaluates the empirical plausibility of this claim in the context of women's labour market outcomes. Based on a sample of over 100 countries, the analysis shows that places where the majority language is gender-intensive have lower participation of women in the labour force. Individual-level estimates further underscore this finding and indicate a higher prevalence of gender-discriminatory attitudes among speakers of gender-intensive languages

Constitutions and the Political Agency of Women: A Cross-Country Study

The underrepresentation of women in parliaments worldwide warrants attention to discern underlying sources. This study examines one potential source: the countries’ constitutions. Based on a large cross-country dataset from 2011, the study demonstrates that women's representation in parliament is larger in countries with constitutional protection from gender-based discrimination. Baseline estimates suggest that the presence of such protection results in over a 3.5 percentage point increase in women's share of parliamentary seats. The study probes some underlying mechanisms and shows that places with constitutional protection from gender-based discrimination are likely to have legislation directly targeting women's underrepresentation. The results underscore the role of constitutional design in promoting women's political agency

Gender and climate change: Do female parliamentarians make difference?

This paper investigates whether female political representation in national parliaments influences climate change policy outcomes. Based on data from a large sample of countries, we demonstrate that female representation leads countries to adopt more stringent climate change policies. We exploit a combination of full and partial identification approaches to suggest that this relationship is likely to be causal. Moreover, we show that through its effect on the stringency of climate change policies, the representation of females in parliament results in lower carbon dioxide emissions. Female political representation may be an underutilized tool for addressing climate change

The Role of Conflict in Sex Discrimination:The Case of Missing Girls

Conflicts between ethnic groups can threaten group survival and exacerbate son preference in conformity with the traditional role of men as group defenders. We study the impact of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region on the subnational variation of sex ratios among children in Armenia that has one of the world's highest sex ratios at birth. Difference-in-differences analysis show that communities closer to the conflict region have higher sex ratio among children relative to the communities further away. The findings from household surveys show that fear of war is associated with a stronger son preference at the individual level

Heaven can wait: future tense and religiosity

This paper identifies a new source of differences in religiosity: the type of future tense marking in language. We argue that the rewards and punishments that incentivize religious behaviour are more effective for speakers of languages without inflectional future tense. Consistent with this prediction, we show that speakers of languages without inflectional future tense are more likely to be religious and to take up the short-term costs associated with religiosity. What is likely to drive this behaviour, according to our results, is the relatively greater appeal of the religious rewards to these individuals. Our analysis is based on within-country regressions comparing individuals with identical observable characteristics who speak a different language

Talking in the present, caring for the future: Language and environment

This paper identifies a new source that explains environmental behaviour: the presence of future tense marking in language. We predict that languages that grammatically mark the future affect speakers' intertemporal preferences and thereby reduce their willingness to address environmental problems. We first show that speakers of languages with future tense marking are less likely to adopt environmentally responsible behaviours and to support policies to prevent environmental damage. We then document that this effect holds across countries: future tense marking is an important determinant of climate change policies and global environmental cooperation. The results suggest that there may be deep and surprising obstacles for attempts to address climate change