In this paper, Women’s EDGE looks at trade liberalization through a gender-lens, to address the following questions:
·How are macroeconomic policies that are negotiated by government officials’ actually affecting women in their daily lives?
·What types of policies and programs could be implemented to ensure that increased trade does benefit the poor, particularly poor women?
The paper is divided into eight diverse sections that cover the importance of women in trade, why trade affects women differently to men, why women’s work should be incorporated into economics and how to achieve ‘engendering trade’. The final section of the paper is a specific sector analysis of the effects of trade on women. This section focuses on women in agriculture, small businesses, handy crafts, manufacturing, services and domestic work and provides evidence for both the benefits and costs of trade liberalisation to women in these diverse sectors. The author also provides recommendations on how to alleviate the costs of trade on women specifically for the United States as well as a few recommendations for developing countries domestic policies.
The author concludes that for the majority of women living in poverty to benefit from trade liberalization, negotiators must re-orient policies so that the goal of trade becomes higher levels of economic security, food security, and greater protection for social, political, cultural, and human rights, rather than simply increased profits and economic growth. (Adapted from Authors own summary)