中文摘要
本文研究了农村电气化对中国农村女童就学及其后续生命历程结果的影响。我们利用“小水电农村电气化”（SHP-RE）项目，该项目于20世纪80年代和90年代分三波在各县推行。基于县—队列数据和双重差分设计，我们估计了15岁前接触电气化的影响。SHP-RE使女童的高中阶段入学率提高了5.1个百分点，男童则没有相当幅度的收益。这些影响集中在儿童后期和青春期早期接触电气化的队列中。接触电气化还推迟了女性初婚年龄，并降低了20岁前结婚的概率。机制证据最支持女童家务劳动负担减轻、以及节省劳动力的家用技术采用增加这一解释。较早实现电气化的县，后来也表现出高中及以上学历女性占比更高、企业注册密度更大。总体而言，结果表明农村电气化在关键的人力资本和生命历程维度上，为女童和女性带来了巨大且持久的收益。
Abstract
This paper studies the effects of rural electrification on girls' schooling and later life-course outcomes in rural China. We draw on the Rural Electrification through Small Hydropower (SHP-RE), which was rolled out across counties in three waves during the 1980s and 1990s. Using county-cohort data and a difference-in-differences design, we estimate the effects of exposure to electrification by age 15. SHP-RE increased girls' upper-secondary enrollment by 5.1 percentage points, with no comparable gains for boys. The effects are concentrated among cohorts exposed during later childhood and early adolescence. Exposure also delayed women's age at first marriage and reduced the probability of marrying before age 20. Mechanism evidence is most consistent with reduced domestic labor burden for girls and greater adoption of labor-saving household technology. Counties electrified earlier also later exhibited higher shares of women with upper-secondary education or above and greater enterprise-registration density. Overall, the results show that rural electrification generated large and persistent gains for girls and women at key human-capital and life-course margins.