We examine the impact of the rapid expansion of electricity to rural areas
of Iran after the 1979 revolution on an important determinant of women’s
empowerment, fertility. We use the timing of provision of electricity to villages
to identify its impact on villages child-woman ratio. We use differencein-differences
(DID) and instrumental variables (IV) methods to account for
the potential endogeneity of electrification. Our findings are highly sensitive to
the method of identification. The DID results imply that electrification lowers
fertility whereas the IV estimates suggest the opposite.