Giving women the vote causes inflation?

Merryn Somerset Webb at MoneyWeek theorises that giving women the vote causes inflation:

We wonder if it is the case that you can trace inflation in the West back to universal suffrage. Politicians promise what they think voters want and women voters, being society’s main carers, are most likely to be promised the things that most expand the state. Historically, it has mattered more – or been perceived by politicians to matter more – to women that they get help looking after the young, the sick and the disabled, than it has to the men who don’t do so much of this work.

So what do you do to get the female vote? You promise more schools and hospitals. Then you promise universal tertiary education, tax credits for everyone, free bus passes for the over-60s and subsidised nursery care. And the more unaffordable things the state promises, the more likely it is to have to print money to pay for it – and the more likely inflation becomes.

So there is a horrible possibility that, while it doesn’t make it their fault (it remains the fault of over-promising, power-hungry politicians), giving women the vote actually causes inflation.

Intriguing theory… I suspect we’re all quite glad that we do have all these things that the “female vote” demand! Just need to figure how to pay for it all…