Research Seminar: Kjell Salvanes (NHH)

Title: "Gender-biased technological change: Milking machines and the exodus of women from farming"

  • Date: 22 October 2024 from 12:00 to 13:15

  • Event location: Auditorium - Piazza Scaravilli, 1 + Microsoft Teams Meeting

Abstract

This paper studies how gender-biased technological change in agriculture affected women’s work in 20th-century Norway. After WWII, dairy farms began widely adopting milking machines to replace the hand milking of cows, a task typically performed by young women. We show that the adoption of milking machines pushed young rural women out of farming in dairy-intensive municipalities. The displaced women moved to cities where they acquired more education and found better-paid employment. Our results suggest that the adoption of milking machines broke up allocative inefficiencies across sectors, which improved the economic status of women relative to men.

Local Organizer: Stephanie Heger