When Trade Agreements Are Gender-Friendly: Impact on Women Empowerment using Firm Data
Abstract
This paper studies the effect of gender-related provisions in Regional Trade Agreement on underexplored
aspects of gender inequality at the plant level, namely the difference in the managerial
and ownership status between the two genders. This topic is timely and critical as gender equality
considerations are becoming more prominent in new trade agreements, recognizing to different
extents that trade policies developed with a gender perspective can help overcome gender
inequalities by creating new opportunities for women’s equal representation in export jobs and
entrepreneurship. We use the World Bank Enterprise Surveys that encompasses data on 195,000
firms in 155 countries in 56 manufacturing and services sectors, and the dataset on gender-related
provisions in trade agreements from the World Trade Organization. Our results show that the total
number of gender-related provisions in trade agreements, as well their location in articles and in
annexes are positively associated with a higher probability of the firm to be owned or managed by
a female. This result is robust whether the firm is an exporter, importer, or involved in the global
value chain of the sector of interest. When differentiating countries by income level, we find that
the positive effect of gender-related provisions in trade agreements on women empowerment holds
only for developed countries, pointing out the importance of making South-South agreements more
gender friendly.