An Assessment Of Trade Openness On Gender Inequality: An ARDL To Co-Integration Approach (A Case Study Of Pakistan)

Abstract

The impacts of trade policies are ambiguous for male and females due to difference in social status, economic opportunity and control over resources in developing countries. Unfortunately, trade policies are gender blind and overlook female’s concern and objectives. It is fact that trade openness promotes economic development but it is still unclear its impact on females. The study investigates the impact of trade openness on gender inequality in case of Pakistan from the period of 1985 to 2015. We have taken gender inequality index generated by Ahmed and Bukhari (2007), foreign direct investment, trade openness, Female labour force participation, enrolment ratio of females, and government spending on health and education sector. After applying Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) to co-integration and Vector Error Correction Estimation (VECM) technique, the results demonstrate the sign of stationary of time series variables, and short run as well as of long-run equilibrium relation among variables. However, trade liberalization polices will be beneficial if its help to increase the export sector. Export sectors of Pakistan are on textile, clothing and mostly on agriculture products where mostly female are employed. Increasing share of government spending in health and education will indirectly affect the women health ability in order to enhance their social status and access over the economic recourses which can reduce the gender inequality in Pakistan.