The Gender Gap in Globalization and Well-Being

Lately, discontent with globalization has risen. Subjective well-being rather than objective indicators such as income, its distribution or sector of employment may be key to explaining the growth in anti-globalization sentiments. Though there is far from a consensus, some studies present evidence that it is in particular women, who do less well. Drawing on trade and subjective well-being data of approx. 60K individuals and 50 countries, we dissect how import penetration affects well-being at the margin. Doing so, a difference-in-difference analysis allows to disentangle gender differences on predicted probabilities across the well-being domain. While data suggests that women do worse at higher import penetration, a thorough investigation delivers a more diverse picture. Accordingly, and contrary to beliefs, women are relatively stronger negatively affected by a marginal increase in import penetration in countries which rank comparatively low in import penetration. The result stands up to alternative measures in trade globalization. This finding suggests that gender gaps in trade globalization and well-being are more a matter of a country’s policies, institutions and established norms and how well they are adapted to a globalized environment rather than any gender differences (e.g. in risk aversion) per se.