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The impact of trade liberalization on women's job opportunities and earnings in developing countries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2004

HILDEGUNN KYVIK NORDÅS
HILDEGUNN KYVIK NORDÅS
Affiliation:
World Trade Organization
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Abstract

This paper analyses how trade affects women's job opportunities and earnings through five case studies: Mauritius, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Women's share of the labour force has increased over time and the wage gap between men and women has narrowed. A positive and statistically significant correlation between exports and women's share of employment is found while there is a statistically significant and negative correlation between women's share in employment and imports. The correlations stem from variation between sectors rather than within sectors over time, indicating that export-competing industries tend to employ women while import-competing industries tend to employ men. Trade liberalization is likely to create jobs for women and over time increase their relative wages.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 2003 , pp. 221 - 231
Copyright
© 2003 Hildegunn Kyvik Nordås

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Footnotes

The author is grateful to Aissatou Sakho for research assistance and Robert Teh and two anonymous referees for useful comments on this and previous versions of the paper.