• Gender impacts

Gender impacts of trade liberalisation

This paper assesses the implications of the current non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations for developing countries with a particular focus on the impact on women. It highlights that if the major countries get their way, tariffs on industrial products will have tremendously negative impacts on industrial development in developing countries.

Effects are likely to spread across three broad areas: budgetary & financial, employment / livelihood and entrepreneurship survival and growth prospects:

• tariff cuts will lead to declining government revenue, which is likely to lead to a cut in government spending, most likely to be felt the most in the health care and education sector
• these cuts in spending are very likely lead to women and men increasing their unpaid labour to take care of sick and the invalid impact
• given women’s double role in provisioning and care, women’s time burden and care activities will increase invalid impact
• employment dynamics are rather complex and depend on whether or not women were significant players in the manufacturing or manufacturing related sub sectors; what can be expected are a significant number of job losses
• ultimately, economy wide reductions in tariffs impacts the employment of men and women when it translates into reduced domestic production and output as well as impacts the market size of domestic firms
• if it is the case that declining industrial production by domestic firms is offset by increased production in other areas, for example, agriculture or services or by inflow of foreign firms (usually in assemble type production), then the unemployment effect will be temporary
• if the increased production occurs primarily through the incursion of foreign capital (in assembly type operations), and to the extent that these new employment opportunities require low skilled labour, the preferred labour force are women
• given the gender realities, women entrepreneurs will likely have less ability to adjust to rapid and prolonged shocks in the manufacturing sector and will likely be more vulnerable to import competition than male-owned firms
• there are also likely to be negative multiplier (spin) effects as the shocks in the manufacturing sector will impact other sectors that are directly dependent on it (or the spending of wage earners in this sector) for the purchase of raw materials as well as services .

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