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Women's Voice on Redistribution: from Gender Norms to Taxation

Number: 144
Year: 2021
Author(s): Monica Bozzano, Paola Profeta, Riccardo Puglisi, Simona Scabrosetti
Gender norms, i.e. the role of men and women in the society, are a fundamental channel through which culture may influence preferences for redistribution and public policies. We consider both cross-country and individual level evidence on this mechanism. We find that in countries that are historically more gender-equal the tax system today is more redistributive. At the individual level, we find that in more gender equal countries gender differences in redistributive preferences are significantly larger. This effect is driven by women becoming systematically more favorable to redistribution, while there are no significant changes for men. Interestingly, there is no gender-based difference in preferences for redistribution among left-leaning citizens, while this difference is significant among moderates in the expected direction: ideologically moderate women are more favorable to redistribution than moderate men, and this effect is even stronger among right-leaning individuals.



Monica Bozzano, University of Pavia — monica.bozzano@unipv.it


Paola Profeta, Bocconi University, Axa Research Lab on Gender Equality and Carlo F. Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policies, Università Bocconi — paola.profeta@unibocconi.it


Riccardo Puglisi, University of Pavia — riccardo.puglisi@unipv.it


Simona Scabrosetti, University of Pavia, and Carlo F. Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policies, Università Bocconi — simona.scabrosetti@unipv.it




Language: English

The paper may be downloaded here.  








Keywords: gender inequality,comparative public finance,tax mix,institutions,historical origins