{"id":433274,"date":"2020-08-06T02:24:05","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T01:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/?p=433274"},"modified":"2020-08-06T02:24:05","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T01:24:05","slug":"women-gain-economic-benefits-from-greater-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/2020\/08\/06\/women-gain-economic-benefits-from-greater-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Women Gain Economic Benefits from Greater Trade\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Ugo Aliogo<\/p>\n

Trade increases women\u2019s wages and helps close the wage gap between men and women while creating better jobs for women, a new World Bank Group report has stated.<\/p>\n

It stated that countries that are open to international trade tend to grow faster, innovate, improve productivity, and provide higher income and more opportunities to their people. Countries that are more open to trade, as measured by the trade-to-GDP ratio, have higher levels of gender equality.<\/p>\n

The report, produced in collaboration with the World Trade Organisation, marked the first major effort to quantify how women are affected by trade using a new gender-disaggregated dataset.<\/p>\n

The dataset, developed by the World Bank Group, allows researchers to understand how women are employed, in which industries they work, how much they earn, and whether or not they are involved in global trade. This analysis helps governments see how trade policies can affect women and men differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past 30 years, trade has been the engine of poverty reduction. This report shows that, provided the right policies are in place, it can also provide an engine to reduce the gender gap,\u201d World Bank Managing Director, Mari Pangestu said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrade can expand women\u2019s role in the economy and decrease disparities with men by giving women more and better employment opportunities. Seizing these opportunities will be even more important in a post-COVID-19 world.\u201d
\nThe report titled, \u2018Women and Trade: The Role of Trade in Promoting Women\u2019s Equality,\u2019 offers several key findings.<\/p>\n

It showed that firms that are part of global value chains (GVCs) employ a greater percentage of women (33 percent) relative to non-GVC firms (24 percent).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen countries open themselves to trade, women\u2019s share of wages in the manufacturing sector increase by 5.8 percentage points on average. When women are employed in sectors with high exports, they are more likely to be formally employed. Formal employment means better job benefits, training, and job security,\u201dnit stated.<\/p>\n

The report also highlighted the importance of addressing discrimination against women in trade policy. Although no country overtly imposes tariffs according to gender, implicit biases can amount to \u201cpink tariffs\u201d that put women at an economic disadvantage.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, it showed that products specifically consumed by women face a higher tariff burden than men\u2019s products.<\/p>\n

In the textile sector, for instance, tariffs on women\u2019s apparel are $2.77 billion higher than on men\u2019s clothing, a consumption gap that grew about 11 percent in real terms between 2006 and 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisparities like this can hurt women consumers all over the world. Targeted policies can help women maximise the benefits of trade. These include removing trade barriers that impede women\u2019s access to international markets and improving women\u2019s access to education, financial services, and digital technologies. \u201cGovernments can design trade facilitation measures that remove gender-specific barriers to trade. These measures could address burdensome customs requirements, limited access to trade finance, and exposure to extortion or physical harassment at borders,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ugo Aliogo Trade increases women\u2019s wages and helps close the wage gap between men and women while creating better jobs for women, a new World Bank Group report has stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":433275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7568,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-latest"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thisdaylive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}