The Impact of Globalization on Female Employment: Econometric Evidence for the Selected Transition Countries

Abstract

Globalization is defined as the exchange of human capital, technology, and culture, along with many other economic, financial, and cultural factors, between countries, and it is regarded as a significant determinant of labor market dynamics and integration. Some studies in the labor economics literature suggest that as the borders between countries close as a result of globalization, the number of employment opportunities available to women increases. This, in turn, might result in releasing restrictions on female employment and leading to reductions in the wage gap among female workers, especially between developing and developed countries. However, other studies indicate that the impact of globalization on female employment during the globalization process remains negative. The principal objective of this study is to decide whether a country's globalization index has impeded female employment in transition countries. The majority of transition countries are associated with developing economies. A panel dataset of the selected 21 transition countries from 1995 to 2017 is employed in the analysis. The results of the Cross-Sectionally Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag model (CS-ARDL) indicate that globalization is negatively associated with female employment for the selected transition countries. Thus, globalization might create obstacles among female workers unless policymakers provide optimal policies to keep the labor market dynamics stable during the globalization process.