Gender Empowerment in 19th Century Sweden: Women’s Economic Empowerment and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital

Using unique data spanning the universe of individuals in 37 Swedish parishes throughout the 19 th century this paper examine the effect of the economic conditions at birth on the intergenerational transmission of health. In addition, we also study whether and to what extent gender-specific earnings shocks affect this transmission differently. We find that higher relative male earnings led to more illegitimate births and worse children’s health. On the contrary, increasing women’s relative incomes reduced the illegitimacy rates and improved health outcomes. Gender-specific earnings shocks also have long-lasting and persistent effects. Women whose parents experienced a male-specific positive earnings shock had more children, gave birth to their first child at a younger age, and experienced higher child death rates. We detect a reduction in total fertility among parents who experienced a female-specific earnings shock during childhood and a decrease in the incidence of infant death among their children.  Department of Economics, Stockholm University Email: [email protected].  Carey School of Business, John Hopkins University, and NBER Email: [email protected]. We are grateful to Paul Schultz, Claudia Olivetti and seminar participants at the AEA/ASSA Annual Meeting in San Diego 2013.