Women’s voice on redistribution: From gender equality to equalizing taxation

We investigate the role played by gender equality in redistributive policies through taxation and
in preferences for redistribution. First, at the cross-country level, we study how the historical
roots of gender equality –i.e., the time of women’s enfranchisement and the role of women in the
family– are related with the level of redistribution through taxation. We find that in countries
that are historically more gender equal the tax system today is more redistributive. Second, at
the individual level, in order to shed light on the cross-country evidence, we investigate whether
gender equality is related with overall and/or gender-specific differences in preferences about
redistribution. We find that in more gender-equal countries gender differences in redistributive
preferences are significantly larger, while their average level does not vary: when gender
equality is stronger, women are systematically more favorable to redistribution, whereas there
are no significant changes for men. In turn, the component of gender equality driving this result
is –not surprisingly– the equality of women and men within the political sphere.