The Return of the King: Political Conflict and Female Labor Force Participation

Xanthi Tsoukli, PhD student

Little is known about the effects of political conflict on the status of women in society. If conflicts result in opinions move to the extremes, then more conservative areas might become less favorable to women, while more left-leaning areas might become more favorable. To consider this, the case of Greece after the Second World War is exploited, a time when the country became highly polarized between left and right ideologies, resulting in a three-year civil war. A referendum regarding the reinstatement of the (conservative) monarchy is used as an indicator of political beliefs, and, in a differences-in-differences setting, it is demonstrated that 10% greater political opposition to the monarchy implied that female labor force participation was 1.4% higher after the war. A plausible mechanism is through conservative areas becoming more conservative and liberal areas becoming more liberal, and data on the construction of new churches, a conservative institution, are consistent with this hypothesis. Finally, it is found that these effects were persistent, as reflected by female labor force participation until 1981, and attitudes revealed in the European Value Survey of 1999.

See paper

 Presented in Session 168. Determinants of Female Labour Market Outcomes