The impact of exporting on women's employment

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to examine the effect of exports on women's employment rate for Turkish manufacturing firms over a recent period of 2003-2015. Design/methodology/approach The authors establish treatment models and use propensity score matching (PSM) techniques together with difference-in-difference methodology. Findings The results of the study indicate that starting to export increases women's employment rate for manufacturing firms. Gains in female employment rates are observed for the firms operating in low and medium low technology intensive sectors, low-wage sectors as well as laborlabor-intensive goods exporting sectors. Originality/value The authors complement previous literature by utilizing a rich harmonized firm-level dataset that covers a large number of firms and a recent time period. The authors distinguish between several sub-samples of firms according to technology intensity of the sector in which they operate, wage level and factor intensity of exports and investigate whether or not women gain from trade in terms of employment opportunities.