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Gender, Trade and Development

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Title: Gender, Trade and Development


1
Gender, Trade and Development
  • Oxfam / Gender Action Network, Beijing, China
  • 4 December 2006

2
Overview
  • Introduction
  • I. Trade, development and Gender Equality In
    conflict or in synergy?
  • II. Gender and Trade frameworks, Empirical
    findings and Sectoral approach
  • III.Towards a sustainable gender friendly
    trade-development agenda

3
Trade and development
  • Issues
  • Of social development social protection
  • Social and gender equity
  • Industrial development
  • Employment, sustainable livelihoods working
    conditions

4
Tensions between the role of trade and
development
  • developmental costs of trade include lack of
    attention to production capacity in the domestic
    economydue to discontinuities in industrial and
    development policies as a result of over focusing
    on trade reform etc, lack of attention to human
    resource development etc.
  • social costs that can be linked to trade or that
    are trade related include included rising
    inequality, food insecurity, and trade
    liberalization induced fiscal revenue shortfall
    which endangered social sector spending.

5
Where does gender equality, poverty eradication
fits in?
  • Current patterns of trade (and trade rule-making)
    present significant challenges for gender
    equality objectives, which may have significant
    untowards effects for long-term
    development. WHY? 
  • Gender
  • Gender and growth/trade debate
  • Female led export growth limits and constraints

6
Defining gender
  • gender as a relation of power, is a social
    stratifier that influences the distribution of
    output, work, income, wealth etc. (IWGEM). And
    since, gender also influences the behavior of
    economic agents it is critical to our
    understanding of the economy as well as the role
    of trade in the global economy. As noted by
    feminist economists, institutions, including
    free markets, that mediate between macro and
    micro levels of the economy bear and transmit
    gender biases so cannot be assumed to be gender
    neutral.

7
Trade, development and gender equality
  • Mainstream economists take a glance at gender and
    trade/ growth, they tend to see nothing but the
    good trade liberalization creates employment
    that benefits women and or import competition
    diminishes gender discrimination in labour
    markets. (Bhagwati, In defense of globalization)
  • Feminist Economics, trade impacts on
  • household economy market economy
  • division of labor in between men and women
  • paid and unpaid work and its contribution to the
    market,
  • access to resources, intra household distribution
    of income and resources and the condition under
    which entrepreneurs do business.

8
Trade, development and gender equality
  • Gender issues and outcomes emanating from
    globalisation and trade liberalization include
  • Feminisation of labour market
  • ? or ? access to economic and social resources
    (land, credit, technology training) for women
    relative to men
  • ? or ?unpaid work in home and community
  • ? of tariff ? government budgets ? cuts in
    social programs or ? in regressive taxesimpacts
    women more so than men

9
Trade, development and gender equality
  • The present pattern of trade (and trade
    rule-making) presents significant challenges for
    gender equality objectives and have implications
    for long-term development.
  •  

10
Empirical evidence on GT
  • UNCTAD 2004, UN 1999 argue that trade may impact
    gender equality through
  •  a positive or negative impact on growth and
    employment opportunities. When trade results in
    increased income and employment, this can lead to
    reduction in gender inequality. This can be
    easily offset by problems with the condition of
    work and lack of health and safety precaution.

11
Empirical evidence on GT Relevant to South Asia
  • Competitive pressures from trade and investment
    may reduce or encouraged gender discrimination,
    in particular wage differential.

12
Empirical evidence on GT
  • Fontana and Woods 2000 found that in Bangladesh
    there was a rise in female wages to male wages.
    Battarchaya 1999 noted less wage discrimination
    in the export textile industry in Bangladesh
    compared to the other manufacturing sectors.

13
Empirical evidence on GT
  • But later study by Begum argue that the gap
    between male-female earnings increased, 1990-1997
    after an initial decline between 1983-1990 and
    the earning gaps was widest, the higher the
    skilled category ( cited in FG 2005).

14
Empirical evidence on GT
  • The point is that gender wage gap by itself is
    not enough need to also look at occupational
    segregation. So the trade-wage-gap is
    contradictory.

15
Empirical evidence on GT
  • Facilitating or raising barriers to access by
    women to resources and services. (How can SMEs
    expand to the export market and or maintain
    domestic market share. Here the issue is
    financing and business incubation services,
    market knowledge, mobility, competitiveness and
    linkage to international production networks as
    suppliersin manufacturing as well as non
    traditional agricultural products). FG 2005.

16
Empirical evidence on GT
  • Trade rules may facilitate or constraint
    government in applying policies or regulation
    that address gender equality.

17
Empirical evidence on GT
  • There is also the issue of the quality trade off
    in employment

18
Empirical evidence on GT
  • There is also the issue of focusing only or
    mostly on womens market participation and
    ignoring issues of well-being (in terms of loss
    of leisure activities and double burden between
    market work and reproductive work (FG 2005).

19
Empirical evidence on GT
  • Study using Nepal shows that women are likely to
    increase market work, regardless of the amount of
    time males spend in domestic work, in response to
    tariff induced fiscal short value and imposition
    of value added tax.
  • The increase in womens market activity showed up
    in expansion of Nepals agricultural sectors, The
    study concluded that (t)rade reform also
    increases the leisure time of men (FG 2005)

20
Empirical evidence on GT
  • Trade in services in the region is also seen to
    be linked to socially reproductive service
    womens migrant work

21
Gender and the success of trade and growth
strategies.
  • Female employment in agriculture (mainly non
    traditional agricultural exportsLatin America
    and South Africa) and non-agriculture can lead to
    increase income in export oriented industries.
    (Frances Perkins found that a 1 increase in the
    share of exports in developing countries may be
    associated with a 0.2 increase in female non
    agricultural employment cited in UN 1995.)

22
Gender, trade and growth
  • Gender, trade and growth contd.
  • However, recent work on Taiwan, Hong Kong, South
    Korea and Mexico show a decline or reversal of
    womens share in manufacturesde-feminization.
    Gender and the success of trade and growth
    strategies.

23
Gender inequality and growth problems
  • Micro economic empirical evidence and
    macroeconomic analysis indicates that gender
    inequality directly and indirectly limits
    economic growth, due to gender differences in
    economic options, incentives and productivity.

24
  • Micro studies show that gender differences in
    access to assets limit the options of women
    gender differences in labor remuneration lead to
    conflict and affect labour allocation at the
    Household level gender difference in labor and
    other factor productivity limits economic
    efficiency and output.
  • Macro economic analysis on the determination of
    growth. Findings in SSA gender differences in
    education and employment, 1960-92, served to
    reduce the annual per capita growth by 0.8
    percentage points (which it is argued could have
    double economic growth over the last 30 years).

25
  • Gender inequality seems to account for 15-20 of
    the difference in growth performance between SSA
    and East Asia (Klasen 1999). Klasen argues that
    Uganda could gain up to 2 points of GDP growth
    per year through addressing structural gender
    based inequalities in education (total years of
    schooling) and in formal sector employment.
  • The 2004 PEAP put this at 5 of GDP
  • (Sources Gender and Growth Assessment Uganda.
    Feb. 1, 2005.)

26
  • In linear programming models that examined the
    implication of change in gender division of
    labour on productivity of output, it was found
    that if gender roles in farming was abandoned,
    farm cash income would increase by about 10 and
    productivity of labour by 15 and capital by 45
    (Keller 1999 cited in Blacken).
  • Gender roles are not economic efficient
    necessity for the liberalization of division of
    labour. Blackden

27
  • Gender differential in education and health are
    not an efficient economic choice. Societies that
    under-invest in women pay a price for it in terms
    of slower growth and lower income. Dollar and
    Gatti Are Good times good for women? 1999

28
 Why is gender important in trade agreements and
policy?
  • Gender analysis offers a more comprehensive,
    in-depth and deeply integrative approach to look
    at trade and development.
  • Gender analysis as developed within the body of
    feminist economic analysis focuses on the
    intertwine between the household sector, the
    productive sector and the informal sector.

29
Specific gender and trade issue in South Asia
  • Francisco and Durano the linkages between gender
    and trade in the Asia Pacific is clustered around
    five areas of concern
  • 1. Womens livelihood and food security
    (linking Agricultural products to NAMA)
  • 2.Womens employment, income, micro enterprises,
    and cross broader trade in terms of industry

30
Specific gender and trade issue in South Asia
  • 3.Womens care work and access to care services
    together with issues relating to Mode VI of GATS
  • 4. Women access to food and essential medicines
    (TRIPS)
  • 5.Restrictions on domestic regulations that
    impacts governments ability to respond to rights
    and development issues (linkages to SDT, NTB,
    Implementation and Accession).

31
 Why is gender important in trade agreements and
policy?
  • It seeks to explicitly pinpoint the transfer
    costs and adjustment burden associated with trade
    liberalization-induced trade reforms on the
    household economy, unpaid labor, and the overall
    economic empowerment of men and women.

32
 Why is gender important in trade agreements and
policy?
  • it highlights the feedback effect between gender
    inequality and the performance of trade reform
    geared towards the promotion of trade
    liberalization.
  • Current research on gender and trade, highlight a
    two-way intertwine between trade liberalization
    and gender trade liberalization can increase or
    decrease gender inequality and gender inequality
    can lead to trade liberalization not achieving
    the desired results.

33
 Why is gender important in trade agreements and
policy?
  • Recognition of the underlying and existing gender
    realities in the economy should compel policy
    makers to also develop gender sensitive and
    anti-poverty complementary policies or flanking
    measures in the context of trade reform.

34
 Why is gender important in trade agreements and
policy?
  • Such Measures include child care provisions,
    changing or revising land and property rights,
    providing incentives that allow credit
    institutions to lend to women borrowers and or
    building infrastructure (road, storage
    facilities) closers to where women producers are
    located.

35
Gender consideration is also important for the
success of trade and growth strategies.
  • female employment in agriculture (mainly non
    traditional agricultural exportsLatin America
    and South Africa) and non-agriculture can lead to
    increase income in export oriented industries.
    (Frances Perkins found that a 1 increase in the
    share of exports in developing countries may be
    associated with a 0.2 increase in female non
    agricultural employment cited in UN 1995.)

36
Gender consideration is also important for the
success of trade and growth strategies.
  • Joekes 1995, Standing 1989 and UN 1999 found that
    industrialization in NIEs (Taiwan, Hong Kong,
    South Korea and Singapore) is as much
    female-led (the feminization of export) as it is
    export-led. This supports observations that
    (t) employment of large numbers of women in the
    low-value chains of global production networks
    often provides the stepping stone for a systemic
    industrial strategy.

37
Gender and trade liberalisation II
  • gender-differentiated impacts of the interplay
    between existing gender inequality and trade
    policies include
  • gender specific effects of trade-induced
    fiscal adjustment
  • gender specific effects of trade-induced
    employment effect
  • gender effects of internal market adjustment.
  •  

38
Trade liberalisation and womens well-being
empowerment
  • Trade liberalization is associated with the
    intensification of competition between and within
    economies in the MTS. This is often played out at
    the sub national level in terms of industrial
    restructuring that creates tensions and dilemmas
    around

39
Tensions Dilemmas
  • Poor and uneducated women versus middle and more
    educated women over jobs, with the latter losing
    ground in uncompetitive manufacturing sector
    while the former may be experiencing greater
    access to jobs in the emerging service

40
Tensions Dilemmas 2
  • Regional competition between women. When
    regional trade arrangements as well as
    multilateral agreements divert trade from one
    region to another or among countries in a region,
    women in one sector, say textile, in one country
    or region may lose jobs to their counterparts in
    the same sector in another country or region

41
Tensions and Dilemmas 3
  • Sustainability of income and livelihood.
  • Threats to the sustainability of income and
    wages. Low wage bias plague women workers in the
    manufacturing sector and industrial agriculture.
    Increase international competition in these
    sectors have implications for womens long-term
    economic viability.

42
Tensions Dilemmas 4
  • Empowerment.
  • Jobs and income may increase some womens ability
    to participate in decision-making in the
    household especially around expenditure, savings
    and investment decisions.

43
Tensions Dilemmas 5
  • This may bode well for improvement in childrens
    and womens access to health and education.

44
Tensions Dilemmas 6
  • Perception of girls and women as liabilities
    versus assets to family may shift to more
    positive ones engendering more education for
    girls at all levels (primary, secondary and
    tertiary) and womens autonomy in personal
    matters as well as contribute to reduction in
    domestic violence.

45
Core Questions from gender sensitive approach
  • Does trade policy and agreements promote better
    access to services that are essential for social
    reproduction and sexual and reproductive health
    (medicines, water, electrification/fuel,
    sanitation etc), particularly for groups that
    have been traditionally disadvantage or
    vulnerable to poverty?

46
Core question 2
  • 2. What are the prevailing assumptions in making
    the linkage between trade policy, social and
    other policies in the formulation of trade
    policy, trade negotiations mandate and
    complementary trade support programs?

47
Core question contd
  • 3. Are differences between women and men in terms
    of access to tangible (economic and social
    resource) and intangible assets taken into
    account in the implementation of trade policy and
    trade agreements?

48
Towards a sustainable gender sensitive trade
  • At the national level
  • Implement land reform for better access and
    entitlement to land, especially for women.
  • Incorporate gender sensitive provisions in
    domestic regulatory framework for services
  • Pay greater attention to decreasing wage
    disparities

49
Towards sustainable gender sensitive trade
  • Create an adequate level of social
    protection/universal service provisos/ safeguard
    cross subsidization of services in rural areas
  • Strengthen the visibility of womens and mens
    unpaid labour        Performance requirement for
    foreign service provider (Riddle). This will
    benefit women-owned and other SMEs.
  • Employment and pay equity legislation (Riddle).

50
Towards sustainable gender sensitive trade
  • More systematic national treatment of
    remittances offers steady income and better
    quality of life pull up effect on wages in home
    country and increase womens skill quotient
    benefit women directly contributes to
    infrastructure development and improvement in
    access of the poor to essential services
    (transportation, water, electricity, education
    and health care) and overall living standards
    (UNCTAD 2004)

51
Towards sustainable gender sensitive trade
  • Upwards harmonization and safeguards of workers
    rights
  • Gender equity and gender analysis and gender
    indicators in assessing benefit gains, costs and
    losses from trade
  • The promotion of comprehensive approach to human
    rights in all bilateral, multilateral and
    regional trade agreements
  • Gender sensitive trade related capacity building
  • Gender sensitive export promotion

52
Summing up
  • The role of womens and mens location and
    participation in the economy and how directional
    shifts in trade orientation and trade reform
    impacts on existing gaps in mens and womens
    differential access to resources and the labor
    market must be a critical factor in determining
    the effectiveness of trade to the economy in the
    medium and long term.

53
  • Good practices that will promote benefits for
    women from trade (liberalisation) policy must
    start with a trade policy that is oriented
    towards poverty elimination and the promotion of
    gender equality as explicit objectives.

54
  • It must be centred in a gender aware model of the
    economy that specifically incorporates the
    reproductive and informal sectors of the economy.

55
  • This means that attention must be paid to the
    institutional factors that affect the supply and
    demand for womens labour. These would include

56
  •   Mens and womens time allocation
  •  Womens bargaining power and control of
    household resources land and income.

57
  • Recognise and take action to mitigate the fact
    that the economic activities of women are
    constrained by technological disparities, factor
    market rigidity, information bias, and the inter
    sectoral mobility of resources.

58
  • The above points to the need for supportive
    policies at national and sector levels to create
    and enabling condition for women and men to
    adjust to price incentives and other changing
    economic circumstance brought about by trade
    liberalisation.
  •  

59
  • This would include mechanisms to promote more
    gender sensitive expenditure allocations for
    skill development, and skill upgrading, day care
    and family assistance etc.
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