Did Trade Liberalization Benefit Female Workers? Evidence on Wage and Employment Effects from Egypt

Shireen AlAzzawi

No 787, Working Papers from Economic Research Forum

Abstract: Egypt has gone through a period of dramatic, albeit slow, economic reform and trade liberalization process, with average tariff rates being reduced by more than 50% over a period of 15 years. This study investigates the extent of gender discrimination in the Egyptian manufacturing sector, and the impact of trade reform on the gender wage gap and on female employment. Results indicate that the gender wage gap, most of which is “unexplained” by worker characteristics, is high and has increased dramatically over time. Increasing trade liberalization has largely had a negative impact on women’s relative wages and on their employment, even after controlling for the public-private distinction as well as the occupational distinction. There is, however, some evidence supporting a favorable impact of increased export intensity on females in the labor market. This has important implications for policy makers attempting to create more equitable labor market conditions in post-revolutionary Egypt.

Pages: 43
Date: 2013-10, Revised 2013-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published by The Economic Research Forum (ERF)

Downloads: (external link)
http://erf.org.eg/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/787.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://erf.org.eg/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/787.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://erf.org.eg/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/787.pdf)
http://bit.ly/2lNTHi2 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:erg:wpaper:787

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Economic Research Forum Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Namees Nabeel ().