@article{5a47cabba3624043844c50497c46096b,
title = "Men, women, and machines: How trade impacts gender inequality",
abstract = "This paper studies the effect of trade liberalization on an under-explored aspect of wage inequality - gender inequality. We consider a model where firms differ in their productivity and workers are differentiated by skill as well as gender. A reduction in tariffs induces more productive firms to modernize their technology and enter the export market. New technologies involve computerized production processes and lower the need for physically demanding skills. As a result, the relative wage and employment of women improves in blue-collar tasks, but not in white-collar tasks. We test our model using a panel of establishment level data from Mexico exploiting tariff reductions associated with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Consistent with our theory we find that tariff reductions caused new firms to enter the export market, update their technology and replace male blue-collar workers with female blue-collar workers.",
keywords = "Gender, Inequality, Trade",
author = "Chinhui Juhn and Gergely Ujhelyi and {Villegas Sanchez}, C.",
note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank Yona Rubinstein, Nathan Nunn and Peter Morrow for their thoughtful discussions of an earlier version of the paper. We also want to thank Eric Verhoogen and seminar participants at LSE, Dalhousie, the LACEA — Conference of the Trade and Integration Growth Network, and the 18th Annual Empirical Investigations in International Trade. Carolina Villegas-Sanchez is thankful to Gerardo Leyva, Abigail Duran and Adriana Ramirez for granting access to INEGI data at the offices of INEGI in Aguascalientes under the commitment of complying with the confidentiality requirements set by the Mexican Laws. Special thanks to all INEGI employees that provided assistance and in particular to Gabriel Romero. Carolina Villegas-Sanchez acknowledges financial support from Banco Sabadell . ",
year = "2014",
month = jan,
doi = "10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.09.009",
language = "English",
volume = "106",
pages = "179--193",
journal = "Journal of Development Economics",
issn = "0304-3878",
publisher = "Elsevier B.V.",
}