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Abstract
The extent of openness to international trade may alter incentives differentially by gender for labor force participation, particularly in economies in which gender differentials in human capital investments such as schooling are large and in which norms about gender behaviors are strong. This paper uses historical census data since 1951 and two recent Labor Force Surveys to investigate the impact of international trade openness on gender differences in labor force participation rates in broad occupational categories in Pakistan. The method used controls for average gender differences in these occupational categories and the unobserved factors that affect male and female labor force participation rates equally. The estimates indicate that increased international trade significantly reduces the gap between male and female labor force participation on average across all occupations. However, if responses are allowed to vary across seven broad occupational categories, the estimates suggest that the significant relative increases in female labor force participation are concentrated in agriculture and other primary occupations.
Acknowledgement
Authors are thankful to anonymous referees of the journal for their valuable comments on this paper.
Notes
1. In addition to these studies, a few studies establish the correlation between trade liberalization and economic growth and find an increase in female labor force participation during the growth process (e.g. Goldin (Citation1994), Standing (Citation1989), Juhn and Simon (Citation2006), Busse and Spielmann (Citation2006), Drèze and Sen (Citation1989), Pritchett and Summers (Citation1996) and Klasen (Citation2002)).
2. See Khan (Citation1998) and Din et al. (Citation2003) for more detailed information on trade policies over time in Pakistan.
3. Advocates of import substitution policy, such as Prebisch (Citation1959), argued that this policy was the best way to correct the negative effects on peripheral growth of disparities in foreign trade elasticities with relatively low income elasticities for primary commodities that were the major exports historically for developing countries and higher income elasticities for industrial goods. Import substitution policies later were strongly criticized by Krueger (Citation1980), Ben-David and Loewy (Citation1998), Greenaway et al. (Citation1998) and others.
4. In the early 2000s, despite the trade reforms, tariffs remained a restraint on domestic competition and thus a probable obstacle to the efficient allocation of resources, with adverse consequences for the economy's productivity and local firms’ export competitiveness. In particular, restrictions on wheat and wheat product exports to assure domestic food security may have caused the decline in international trade openness between 1998 and 2003 (WTO Secretariat Report Jan, 2002).
5. Data from 1951 to 1998 are obtained from census reports and the later data are obtained from nationwide surveys. Somewhat different methodologies are used for the collection of the two types of data used. However, the second source of data is nationally representative.
6. Occupation means the type of work done during the reference period by the persons employed, irrespective of the industry or production sector of employment of the person. It provides a description of a person's job/work based on skills he/she has or acquires. This occupational categorization should not be confused with a production sectoral categorization. Every production sector is composed of workers with different occupational skills.
7. We have combined two categories for our first occupational category, i.e. ‘Professionals’ and ‘Technicians and Professionals Associates’ because these two categories were treated together in earlier census reports. Two other categories ‘Craft and related trade workers’ and ‘Plant and Machine Operators’ are combined for the same reason for our fifth occupational category, although these categories are treated separately in the most recent definitions of occupational classifications.
8. The occupational labor force participation rate for men is defined in this study as: (Economically active men between 10 and 65 years of age in an occupational category)/(Total men between 10 and 65 year of age) and similarly for women.
9. Because trade openness may take some time to affect labor force participation, we use the average trade openness for the past three, five and seven years for alternative estimates.
10. That is, if there are factors that affect both MLFPR ijt and FLFPR ijt equally, such as some types of aggregate economic shocks (or perhaps more disaggregated economic shocks), such factors are controlled with DLFPR ijt as the dependent variable because their impact on FLFPR ijt is subtracted from their impact on MLFPR ijt .
11. See Emerging trends in agricultural practices in Pakistan, 1998. Special Report prepared by Agricultural Census Organization Pakistan (Citation1998) for more details.
