Dr. Joanne Haddad (Université Libre de Bruxelles): “Settlers and Norms"

Abstract:
The distinctive traits of early settlers at initial stages of institutional development may be crucial for cultural formation. In 1973, the cultural geographer Wilbur Zelinsky postulated this in his doctrine of “first effective settlement”. I investigate this doctrine and identify its short and long-run implications for gender norms in the United States. I focus on county creation events to capture counties at early stages of cultural and institutional development. I capture settlers’ culture using past female labor force participation, women’s suffrage, and financial rights at settlers’ place of origin. I document the distinctive characteristics of settlers’ populations and provide suggestive evidence in support of the transmission of gender norms across space and time. My results show that women’s labor supply is higher, in both the short and long run, in U.S. counties that historically hosted a larger settler population originating from places with favorable gender attitudes. My findings shed new light on the importance of the characteristics of immigrants and their place of origin for cultural formation in hosting societies.