On the Historical Roots of Women’s Empowerment across Italian Provinces: Religion or Family Culture?

In most developed countries the gender gap is nearly closing in the health and educational spheres
while there is still sizeable gender inequality in the economic and political dimensions. Why do
women’s economic decision-making and political empowerment vary so widely? What are the main
potential determinants of such variations? In this paper we explore the association between two
specific facets of women’s empowerment, the percentage of women holding office in local political
bodies and the percentage of women in high-ranking jobs, with the cultural environment in which
women make their career decisions. Our hypothesis is that culture, in particular those values
embodied by religious culture, plays a central role in shaping norms and beliefs about the role and
involvement of women in society. Moreover we suggest that these cultural norms are inherited from
the past and therefore have a high degree of inertia. Over a cross section of Italian provincial data,
both OLS and IV results indicate that our measures of women’s empowerment are strongly
associated with religious culture, as proxied by religious marriages. These results are robust and
consistent across specifications