Colonialism, Cash Crops and Women in Africa

I study the impact of European colonialism in Africa on the present status of women. The historical literature suggests that a critical determinant of persistent gender inequality is the colonial cash crop system. This favoured men’s entry into the cash economy and excluded women, whose workload increased as they provided additional labour in their husbands’ cash crop fields. By contrast, contemporary economic literature suggests that raising the status of women in the labour force could improve gender norms. I take districts with different levels of participation in cash crop agriculture during colonial rule and compare outcomes for the contemporary female descendants, using exogenous land suitability as the instrument for cash crop production. My findings show a persistent positive effect of cash crop agriculture on women’s status, measured as higher agency within the household, less willingness to justify husbands’ violence, and higher levels of education. No effect is found for labour force participation. The intergenerational transmission of culture plays a key role in explaining the long-run persistent effect, which is especially prevalent in regions whose cash crops were cocoa and palm oil, as women played a substantial role in producing these crops.