2023/01/31 by David de la Croix, Mara Vitale · 1 voice · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Arts and Humanities · #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/ereh/heac023
Abstract We document the participation of women in European academia from the first universities to the eve of the Industrial Revolution. A total of 108 women taught at universities or were members of academies of arts and sciences. Most of them were active in Catholic southern Europe—an unexpected result. We conjecture that Protestantism left less room for women at the top of the distribution of human capital to exercise their talent. The percentage of ever-married female scholars is 79%, but a large fraction of them remained childless. Comparing them with 58,995 male scholars, we find that they were on average better.