The first chapter relates the size of the present-day LGBT population to the discovery
of gold during the nineteenth century gold rushes. Comparing the surroundings
of gold rush counties to other mining counties, we find that there are currently 15%
more same-sex couples in former gold rush counties and that residents of these counties have more favorable attitudes toward homosexuality. Gold rush counties were
initially isolated, mostly uninhabited and lacked strong formal institutions, which
helped shaping pro-LGBT attitudes. Examining channels of persistence, we provide
empirical evidence for selective migration and the lack of strong religious institutions.
The second chapter examines the impact of gender focused labor legislation on
women’s labor force participation and economic empowerment. We rely on historical
legislative acts passed by state legislatures and exploit whether or not states
passed regulatory laws regulating overall and industry specific employment and
work conditions for women, night work laws and labor laws requiring provision of
seats for working women. We exploit the fact that not all states enacted these laws
as well as the variation in the timing of enactment of such laws. Our results show
that women in comparison to men in treated states are more likely to be in the labor
force post introduction of night work laws in comparison to control states. We also
document the effect of industry-specific labor policies on women’s likelihood to be
employed in the affected industry and in higher-wage occupations within the industry
of interest. Policy implications of our findings endorse the adoption of labor laws
in favor of women to advocate their empowerment through a higher involvement in
the labor market and financial independence.
The third chapter tests the doctrine of first effective settlement by relating early
settlers’ culture to within state variation in gender norms in the United States. In
1973, the cultural geographer Wilbur Zelinsky postulated that the distinctive traits
of early settlers at initial stages of institutional development may be crucial for cultural
formation. I capture settlers’ culture using past female labor force participation,
women’s suffrage and financial rights at their place of origin. I document the
distinctive characteristics of settlers’ populations and provide suggestive evidence
in support of the spatial (across locations) and vertical (over time) transmission of
gender norms. My results show that women’s labor supply is higher, in both the
short and long run, in U.S. counties that historically hosted a larger settler population
originating from places with favorable gender attitudes. My findings shed new
light on the importance of immigrants’ characteristics and their countries/states of
origin for cultural formation in hosting societies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/41595 |
| Date | 22 December 2020 |
| Creators | Haddad, Joanne |
| Contributors | Brodeur, Abel, Garred, Jason |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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