Trade policy bias and the gender wage gap

On average, wages of female workers are lower than wages of male workers. In this paper, we explore to what extent a gender bias in trade costs explains this gender wage gap and how different policy reforms could lower it. First, we analyse the relation between various types of trade costs and female labour intensity across sectors. We find that more female labour intensive sectors face both higher tariffs and non-tariff barriers when exporting to other regions and when importing inputs. Second, we explore different trade policy reforms with regards to goods and services trade, and find that services trade policy reform has a more meaningful impact. Third, we simulate trade cost reductions caused by a reduced requirement for face-to-face interaction in services jobs, a phenomenon driven by digitalisation. This change would generate a much larger reduction of the gender wage gap than trade policy reforms.