Missing Men and Women’s Fight for the Vote

In this paper, we investigate whether power vacua lead to collective action of marginalised groups. Specifically, we examine whether the large share of men missing during WWI in Germany led to an increase in the suffragette movement fighting for women's right to vote. We exploit exogenous variation in the drafting probability arising from regional differences in recruitment responsibility and link it to the presence of local suffragette clubs.

Our results suggest that women were more likely to keep open local suffragette clubs in regions with higher male absences during the war. We further explore two additional outcomes of male absences related to women's empowerment. First, we show that male absences led to increased political participation among women once female voting rights were introduced. Second, using data on employment by industry and gender, we show that missing men contributed to the growing importance of women in the economic sphere.

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