Human Capital, Female Employment, and Electricity: Evidence from the Early 20th-Century United States.

This article examines the relationship between electrification and the rise in female labor force participation (LFP) in the United States from 1880 to 1940, proposing a novel human capital channel through which electrification increased market opportunities for skilled women. Using an overlapping generations model calibrated to historical U.S. data, the study finds that electrification raised the productivity and wages of skilled labor—tasks less reliant on physical strength and more accessible to women with education—thereby explaining about one quarter of the increase in female LFP during this period. Empirical analysis based on newly digitized data on early electrification and linked individual-level census records supports the model's predictions, showing that young women with higher required schooling experienced significantly larger employment gains following electrification, while older women did not. The findings also reveal that electrification influenced fertility and marriage patterns, suggesting broader social changes accompanying women's increased labor market engagement. The study highlights the complementarity between electrification and human capital accumulation and underscores implications for contemporary electrification policies, particularly the importance of integrating skill development to maximize labor market benefits for women.