Will Market Competition Trump Gender Discrimination in India?

Ghani, Ejaz ; Goswami, Arti Grover ; Kerr, Sari ; Kerr, William

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: trade liberalization;    de-reservation;    manufacturing;    services;    segmentation;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7814
RP-ID  :  WPS7814

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Empowering women to engage in productiveemployment is not only critical to achieving gender equalitybut also critical for economic growth and poverty reduction.This paper studies the pattern of female activity and gendersegmentation in the Indian manufacturing and servicessectors. Although the share of women entrepreneurs andemployees is larger in manufacturing than in services,segmentation based on gender is pervasive in both sectors.Theory, dating back to Gary Becker, suggests thatcompetitive reforms should reduce the extent of thissegregation. In spite of competition-inducing reforms suchas investment in Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) highways, tradeliberalization and domestic reforms that India undertooksince the turn of the century, this pattern of gender basedsegmentation has not subsided over the years. Specifically,investments in GQ upgrades are found to have 0 effects onfemale activity and gender segmentation. Although there issome evidence of a negative correlation between segmentationamong male employees and industry level trade liberalizationreforms, overall it had a very limited impact on femaleparticipation in labor force and in reducing segmentationamong female employees. Finally, domestic reforms thatdismantled product reservations for small-scale industriesinduced greater participation among women in economicactivity and are correlated with a modest decline insegmentation among male employees. Segregation among femaleemployees is positively associated with these reforms.