Data and Code for: Gender-biased technological change: Milking machines and the exodus of women from farming

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Philipp Ager, University of Mannheim; Marc Goñi, University of Bergen; Kjell G. Salvanes, Norwegian School of Economics

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
1_data			07/10/2025 04:40:AM
2_programs			07/10/2025 11:32:AM
3_results			07/10/2025 12:13:PM
README.pdf	application/pdf	482 KB	10/13/2025 01:18:AM

Project Citation:

Ager, Philipp, Goñi, Marc, and Salvanes, Kjell G. Data and Code for: Gender-biased technological change: Milking machines and the exodus of women from farming. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2025. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-12-03. https://doi.org/10.3886/E235542V1

Project Description

Summary: This paper studies how gender-biased technological change in agriculture affected women's work in 20th-century Norway. In the 1950s, dairy farms began widely adopting milking machines to replace milking cows by hand, a task typically performed by young women. We show that the machines pushed rural young women in dairy-intensive areas out of farming. The displaced women moved to cities where they acquired more education and found better-paying skilled employment. Our results suggest that the adoption of milking machines broke up allocative inefficiencies associated with moving costs across sectors, which improved the economic status of women relative to men.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: technological change; rural-to-urban migration; gender effects

JEL Classification:
      J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
      J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
      J43 Agricultural Labor Markets
      J61 Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
      N34 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: 1913-
      O14 Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
      O33 Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

Geographic Coverage: Norway

Time Period(s): 1930 – 1970

Collection Date(s): 1900 – 2010

Universe:

Norwegian women and men aged 16–25 in 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, or 1970

Data Type(s): administrative records data; census/enumeration data

Methodology

Data Source: Statistics Norway

Unit(s) of Observation: municipality, individual (not provided)

Geographic Unit: Municipality

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Published Versions

V1 [2025-12-03]

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