Although widely ratified international law guarantees women equal access to and enjoyment of the economy, women’s enjoyment of their economic rights continues to show variation--even in developed, democratic countries. I argue that this variation is a result of differing degrees of support for specific women-friendly policies in these countries’ legislatures. In one chapter, I create and test a measure of the women-friendliness of state policies. In the remainder of the book, I examine the process through which such policies
are incorporated in domestic law, using case studies and a new database of more than 3 million speeches I collected from the parliamentary archives of three countries--the United Kingdom, Canada, and Ireland--to determine if trends hold true across time and space.
are incorporated in domestic law, using case studies and a new database of more than 3 million speeches I collected from the parliamentary archives of three countries--the United Kingdom, Canada, and Ireland--to determine if trends hold true across time and space.