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The Grammatical Origins of Gender Roles

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  • Victor Gay

    (IAST - Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Estefania Santacreu-Vasut

    (ESSEC Business School and THEMA (UMR 8184) - ESSEC Business School - THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - CY - CY Cergy Paris Université)

  • Amir Shoham

    (Fox School of Business)

Abstract

We investigate the relation between gender marking in grammar and female participation in the labor market, the credit market, land ownership, and politics. Crosscountry and individual-level analyses reveal that women speaking languages that more pervasively mark gender distinctions are less likely to participate in economic and political life and more likely to encounter barriers in their access to land and credit. These findings are robust to a large set of controls and robustness checks. We also found that the impact of a language's gender structure remains after controlling for culture, for historical agricultural use of the plough.

Suggested Citation

  • Victor Gay & Estefania Santacreu-Vasut & Amir Shoham, 2013. "The Grammatical Origins of Gender Roles," Working Papers hal-04046900, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04046900
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04046900
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Simplice A. Asongu & Raufhon Salahodjaev, 2022. "Do female parliamentarians improve environmental quality? Cross-country evidence," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 22/001, African Governance and Development Institute..
    4. Tang, Jintong & Ye, Wenping & Hu, Mingzhi & Zhang, Stephen X. & Khan, Shaji A., 2024. "The gendered effect of populism on innovation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 39(4).

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