Replies

"We've got a live one here."

Yes--a conservative. The most moderate of feminists follow historical leaders (Susan B. Anthony, for one) who followed the social and fiscal designs of Charles Fourier.

How Dramatically Did Women's Suffrage Change the Size and Scope of Government?

JOHN R. LOTT Jr.
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) (download links for whole document at bottom of page)

September 1998

University of Chicago Law School, John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 60
Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 107, Number 6, Part 1, pp. 1163-1198, December 1999

Abstract:

This paper examines the growth of government during this century as a result of giving women the right to vote. Using cross-sectional time-series data for 1870 to 1940, we examine state government expenditures and revenue as well as voting by U.S. House and Senate state delegations and the passage of a wide range of different state laws. Suffrage coincided with immediate increases in state government expenditures and revenue and more liberal voting patterns for federal representatives, and these effects continued growing over time as more women took advantage of the franchise. Contrary to many recent suggestions, the gender gap is not something that has arisen since the 1970s, and it helps explain why American government started growing when it did.