Why/when did women get right to vote in U.S. States...

Regression analysis results, in the New York Times...

Minority Rules: Sex Ratios and Suffrage
By Catherine Rampell

The Empire State was the home of the Seneca Falls Convention. Yet New Yorkers lagged far behind residents of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana and Nevada in actually granting women the full right to vote. As did all of New York’s fellow time-zone occupants.

So why did Western states and territories extend suffrage to women much earlier than their Eastern counterparts did? The answer, two economists say, might have something to do with sex ratios.

The fact that population proportions played a role probably isn’t surprising. One would expect states with a higher percentage of women to be more likely to enfranchise their female residents than states with a lower percentage of women. After all, there is power in numbers. Just ask Lysistrata.

But actually, the reverse was true. The jurisdictions that granted women the right to vote earlier generally had lower concentrations of women, a new study finds. (Some other factors that correlated with earlier adoption of women’s suffrage were: higher female employment levels; the share of Mormons in a jurisdiction; lower percentage of nonwhites; lower percentage of Irish-born Americans; and a smaller manufacturing sector.)

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Hat tip: Eric Ni