Do Exporters Import Gender Inequality?

Olga Lark () and Josefin Videnord ()
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Olga Lark: Department of Economics, Lund University, Postal: School of Economics and Management, Box 7080, S-220 07 Lund, Sweden
Josefin Videnord: Uppsala University

No 2023:6, Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We examine whether exposure to gender inequality at export destinations affects the gender wage gap in exporting firms. We motivate the analysis through a stylized model where wages depend on worker productivity, and men have a comparative advantage when trading with gender-unequal countries due to customer discrimination. Empirically, we use high-quality matched employer-employee data from Sweden and calculate how exposed firms are to country-level gender inequality through their export destinations. Although increased export intensity on average leads to a wider within-firm gender wage gap, the effect is entirely driven by trade with gender-unequal countries; we find no impact on the gender wage gap when firms increase their exports to countries with gender-equality levels close to that of Sweden. Female managers, who are most likely to interact with foreign customers, experience the most pronounced negative relative wage effects.

Keywords: Export; International trade; Gender wage gap; Gender inequality; Customer discrimination; Gender inequality index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F16 F66 J16 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2023-04-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen, nep-int and nep-lab
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2023_006

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