This paper studies the long-term effects of colonialism on women by utilizing a historical natural experiment: the partition of Cameroon into a British and a French colony between 1919 and 1961. The two colonial regimes opened up divergent economic opportunities for women in an otherwise culturally and geographically homogeneous setting. Women in British territories gained opportunities to earn cash wages under the same conditions as their male counterparts, while the French colonial practice invested in the male employment dominated infrastructure sector. We use the former Anglo-French border within today's Cameroon in a geographical regression discontinuity design. Our main finding shows that the British colonial rule had a two-sided legacy for women that is still visible today. On the one hand, it empowered women economically in terms of access to employment and being paid in cash wages. On the other hand, it made women highly vulnerable to domestic violence. These results are incompatible with household bargaining models that incorporate domestic violence. Supplementary analyses suggest our findings can be accommodated by theories of male backlash. [J12, J16, N37, Z13].

本文通过历史性的自然实验研究了殖民主义对妇女的长期影响：1919年至1961年间喀麦隆分为英国和法国殖民地。这两个殖民政权在不同的文化背景下为妇女创造了不同的经济机会和地理上均一的环境。英属领土上的妇女在与男子相同的条件下获得了赚取现金工资的机会，而法国殖民地做法则投资了以男性就业为主的基础设施部门。在地理回归不连续性设计中，我们在今天的喀麦隆内使用了以前的盎格鲁-法国边界。我们的主要发现表明，英国的殖民统治对妇女具有两方面的影响，今天仍然可见。一方面，它从经济上赋予妇女就业权，并以现金形式支付工资。另一方面，它使妇女极易遭受家庭暴力。这些结果与包含家庭暴力的家庭讨价还价模式不符。补充分析表明，我们的发现可以被男性强烈反对的理论所接受。[J12，J16，N37，Z13]。