Maternal Mortality and Women’s Political Power
研究发现发展中国家实施性别配额制提高女性议员比例后，孕产妇死亡率下降7%-12%，同时提升了专业接生和产前护理的使用率，降低了生育率，增加了年轻女性受教育年限。
Abstract Millions of women continue to die during and soon after childbirth, even where the knowledge and resources to avoid this are available. We posit that raising the share of women in parliament can trigger action. Leveraging the timing of gender quota legislation across developing countries, we identify sharp sustained reductions of 7%–12% in maternal mortality. Investigating mechanisms, we find that gender quotas lead to increases in percentage points of 5–8 in skilled birth attendance and 4–8 in prenatal care utilization, alongside a decline in fertility of 6%–7% and an increase in the schooling of young women of about 0.5 years. The results are robust to numerous robustness checks. They suggest a new policy tool for tackling maternal mortality.