Damian Clarke, FEN-U. de Chile

“Maternal Mortality and Women’s Political Participation”

Coautoreado con Sonia Bhalotra, Joseph Gomes y Atheen Venkataramani

Abstract: We show that large declines in maternal mortality can be achieved by raising women’s politicalparticipation. We estimate that the recent wave of quotas for women in parliament in low incomecountries has resulted in a 9 to 12% decline in maternal mortality. Among mechanisms are thatgender quotas lead to an 8 to 10% increase in skilled birth attendance, a 6 to 12% increase inprenatal care utilization and a 4 to 11% decrease in birth rates.