Trade Liberalization and Gender Inequality in India: A Task Content of Occupations Approach

Abstract This paper considers the differential impact of input and output tariff liberalization on gender outcomes in India’s labour markets. It is the first to distinguish between occupational categories based on their task content to analyse these effects. Recent evidence suggests that trade induced competition and technological upgradation can reduce gender-employment and gender-wage gaps in labour markets. This paper identifies the occupational categories most affected by these competition and technology adoption effects of trade liberalization. It finds that competition effects of output tariff liberalization increases employment of female workers in routine occupations – both manual and cognitive – and reduces gender-employment gaps in routine manual occupations. On the other hand, input tariff liberalization worsens gender-employment gaps in routine manual occupations. The effect of input tariff liberalization on female workers in routine cognitive occupations, however, is to increase cohort-level employment, and there is some evidence that it increases cohort-level average wages for female workers and reduces the gender-wage gap in non-routine cognitive occupations.