Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/71753 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 7224
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We investigate the historical determinants of the education gender gap in Italy in the late nineteenth century, immediately following the country's Unification. We use a comprehensive newly-assembled database including 69 provinces over twenty-year sub-samples covering the 1861-1901 period. We find robust evidence that female primary school attainment, relative to that of males, is positively associated with the medieval pattern of commerce, along the routes that connected Italian cities among themselves and with the rest of the world. The effect of medieval commerce is particularly strong at the non-compulsory upper-primary level and persists even after controlling for alternative long-term determinants reflecting the geographic, economic, political, and cultural differentiation of medieval Italy. The long-term influence of medieval commerce quickly dissipates after national compulsory primary schooling is imposed at Unification, suggesting that the channel of transmission was the larger provision of education for girls in commercial centers.
Subjects: 
education gender gap
medieval commerce
Italian Unification
political institutions
family types
JEL: 
E02
H75
I25
J16
N33
O15
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
475.28 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.