Clearing the smog ceiling: The impact of women’s political empowerment on air quality in European regions

Abstract

This study explores the impact of female political empowerment on air quality outcomes. Women’s stronger environmental concerns and pro-environmental behaviors may lead to better air quality as they progressively break the glass ceiling in politics. To test this hypothesis, we employ a novel data set on regional air pollutant emissions and women’s political empowerment for a sample of 230 European regions of 27 EU countries. We apply instrumental variables and partial identification methods to ensure that our results are not influenced by confounding variables. We find that female political empowerment is consistently associated with improved air quality.