New Paper Accepted in the American Economic Review
The paper "Gender-biased Technological Change: Milking Machines and the Exodus of Women from Farming", by Philipp Ager, Marc Goni, and Kjell G. Salvanes, has been accepted for publication in the American Economic Review.
Milking Machines and the Transformation of Women’s Work
This study examines how technological change in agriculture, biased along gender lines, contributed to broader structural changes in the Norwegian economy after World War II. The introduction of milking machines, which replaced the hand milking traditionally performed by women, led to a significant decline in female labor on farms—particularly in dairy-intensive regions.
Using population-wide Norwegian registry data combined with Census of Agriculture information at the municipality level, the authors document how the adoption of milking machines displaced young rural women from agricultural work. Many of these women moved to urban areas, where they attained higher levels of education and secured better-paid employment.
The analysis builds on an extended Roy model of comparative advantage, incorporating task automation and the gender division of labor. In addition to short-term labor market effects, the study finds significant inter-generational outcomes: mechanization broke with established gender norms and improved women’s long-term educational and earnings prospects relative to men.