Abstract
Gains in 20th century real wages and reductions in the black-white wage gap have been linked to the midcentury ascent of school quality. With a new data set uniquely appropriate to identifying the impact of female voter enfranchisement on education spending, we attribute up to one-third of the 1920–40 rise in public school expenditures to the Nineteenth Amendment. Yet the continued disenfranchisement of black Southerners meant white school gains far outpaced those for blacks. As a result, women’s suffrage exacerbated racial inequality in education expenditures and substantially delayed relative gains in black human capital observed later in the century.
- Received January 2014.
- Accepted June 2014.
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In this issue
Jump to section
- Article
- Abstract
- I. Introduction
- II. Historical and Theoretical Foundation
- III. Data
- IV. Empirical Strategy and Results
- V. Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Voter Turnout Data
- Appendix 2 Extension: State Spending after Suffrage
- Appendix 3 Robustness and Falsification Checks
- Appendix 4 Event-Study Estimates
- Appendix 5 Extension: Timing of Impact
- Footnotes
- References
- Figures & Data
- Info & Metrics
- References
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