Women's international football success and women's economic freedom

Abstract We investigate the impact of women's political and economic freedom on success in women's international football. We hypothesize that as women achieve political and economic freedom, the country's women's national team experiences reduced on‐pitch performance in the short run but over time greater economic and political freedom opens voluntary opportunities for women to pursue football at earlier ages which generates improved on‐pitch performance in the longer run. The empirical evidence supports these two hypotheses suggesting that the overall benefits of increased political and economic freedom for women in international football are not immediate but are, nonetheless, concrete.