Legalization of abortion in the 1970s represents a major cultural change: it gives women a higher degree of freedom to directly control their fertility, allowing them to ultimately decide upon children without man's consent and to decrease uncertainty in their expected labor market returns. This...

Powerful currents have reshaped the structure of families over the last century. There has been (i) a dramatic drop in fertility and greater parental investment in children; (ii) a rise in married female labor-force participation; (iii) a significant decline in marriage and a rise in divorce; (iv)...

Under what conditions is gender-equality policy advocacy successful? This paper examines a segment of the growing quantitative comparative political science literature that seeks to answer this question. Recent scholarship emphasizes such factors as the strength of women's movements and the...

This paper aims to understand how policy change for women's rights occurs, and what factors and conditions facilitate non-state actors' influence over policy processes. It argues that policy change is a complex and iterative process, and explores the range of actors that mobilize for/against...