Export intensity and its effect on women's employment

Abstract

Using firm-level survey data for 29,962 manufacturing firms in 141 developing and emerging countries, the impact of exports (as a percentage of sales) on the share of female workers at the firm is estimated. The impact is positive, large, and statistically significant. For the baseline specification, moving from a firm that does not export to one that does all its sales abroad is associated with a 6.6 percentage point increase in the share of female workers. This positive relationship is much stronger when competition in the domestic markets is low, social attitudes and mobility laws are more favorable to women's work outside the home, and the law-and-order situation is better. We argue that these heterogeneities serve as important checks against endogeneity concerns. We also provide results using the average share of exports in a country–industry cell as an instrument. The policy implications of our findings are discussed in detail.