Trade Liberalization, Female Labor Force Participation and Economic Growth

Effects of Trade on Female Labor Force Participation

This paper uncovers a counter-intuitive effect of international trade on female labor shares: whenever trade expands sectors intensive in female labor, female labor shares drop. When capital complements female labor more than male labor, the following mechanism operates: Expansions of sectors intensive in female labor come along with contractions of sectors intensive in male labor. Thus, male l...

International Trade, the Gender Wage Gap, Female Labor Force Participation and Growth

This paper analyzes the effect of international trade on the gender wage gap and the resulting impact on households’ trade-off between female labor force participation (FLFP) and fertility. We argue that whenever trade expands sectors intensive in female labor, the gender wage gap widens and FLFP falls. In a model where male labor and female labor are two distinct factors of production we disti...

Trade Liberalization, Privatization and Economic Growth

House prices and female labor force participation

Is there a causal connection between house prices and labor force participation of married women? The simple correlation between house prices and married women’s labor force participation across U.S. metro areas is positive. Plausible, informal arguments have been advanced to support causation in either direction: prices raising participation (negative income effects of higher house prices lead...

Female Labor Force Participation in Japan

This paper seeks to address the problems of childcare scarcity, declining fertility rates and work-family conflict faced by the growing female labor force in Japan. Japan’s total fertility rate has been declining since the 1970s and it fell below the replacement level of 1.3 in 2003. Since the 1990s, the Japanese government has implemented pro-natal policies such as childcare market deregulatio...