Globalization and the Gender Wage Gap

There are several theoretical reasons why globalization willhave a narrowing as well as a widening effect on the genderwage gap, but little is known about the actual impact, exceptfor some country studies. This study contributes to the literaturein three respects. First, it is a large cross-country studyof the impact of globalization on the gender wage gap. Second,it employs the rarely used ILO October Inquiry database, whichis the most far-ranging survey of wages around the world. Third,it focuses on the within-occupation gender wage gap, an alternativeto the commonly used raw and residual wage gaps as a measureof the gender wage gap. This study finds that the occupationalgender wage gap tends to decrease with increasing economic development,at least in richer countries, and to decrease with trade andforeign direct investment (FDI) in richer countries, but findslittle evidence that trade and FDI also reduce the occupationalgender wage gap in poorer countries.