Do Exporters Import Gender Inequality?

We examine whether exposure to gender inequality at export destinations affects the gender wage gap in exporting firms. We motivate the analysis through a stylized model where wages depend on worker productivity, and men have a comparative advantage when trading with gender-unequal countries due to customer discrimination. Empirically, we use high-quality matched employer-employee data from Sweden and calculate how exposed firms are to country-level gender inequality through their export destinations. Although increased export intensity on average leads to a wider within-firm gender wage gap, the effect is entirely driven by trade with gender-unequal countries; we find no impact on the gender wage gap when firms increase their exports to countries with gender-equality levels close to that of Sweden. Female managers, who are most likely to interact with foreign customers, experience the most pronounced negative relative wage effects.