Importing Equality? The Impact of Globalization on Gender Discrimination

Sandra Black and Elizabeth Brainerd

No 556, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: While researchers have long held that discrimination cannot endure in an increasingly competitive environment, there has been little work testing this dynamic process. This paper tests the hypothesis (based on Becker 1957) that increased competition resulting from globalization in the 1980s forced employers to reduce costly discrimination against women. The empirical strategy exploits differences in market structure across industries to identify the impact of trade on the gender wage gap: because concentrated industries face little competitive pressure to reduce discrimination, an increase in competition from increased trade should lead to a reduction in the gender wage gap. We compare the change in the residual gender wage gap between 1976 and 1993 in concentrated versus competitive manufacturing industries, using the latter as a control for changes in the gender wage gap that are unrelated to competitive pressures. We find that increased competition through trade did contribute to the relative improvement in female wages in concentrated relative to competitive industries, suggesting that, at least in this sense, trade may benefit women by reducing firms’ ability to discriminate.

Keywords: discrimination; gender wage gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2002-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Published - published in: Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 2004, 57 (4), 540-598

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Journal Article: Importing Equality? The Impact of Globalization on Gender Discrimination (2004)
Working Paper: Importing Equality? The Impact of Globalization on Gender Discrimination (2002)
Working Paper: Importing Equality? The Impact of Globalization on Gender Discrimination (2002)
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