Women’s suffrage: better level of education, fewer weddings

(© Image: Depositphotos) - The introduction of the general right to vote for women in Switzerland contributed significantly to their emancipation. Researchers at the University of Basel have now retrospectively statistically evaluated and quantified the effects on employment, education and the family model. The anonymous petition by women in Zurich demanding women's suffrage in 1868 as part of the constitutional reform had no chance of success, as did many other initiatives to this end. It was not until 1959 that the canton of Vaud was the first to introduce women's suffrage at communal and cantonal level. The women of Appenzell, a canton that comprises the two half-cantons of Ausserrhoden and Innerrhoden, had to wait the longest for full political participation. While they received the right to vote at the federal level in 1971, it was only from 1989 in Ausserrhoden and 1990 in Innerrhoden that they were entitled to vote at the cantonal level. Swiss women of the same age were thus given the right to vote at very different ages, depending on the canton of residence.