Export exposure and gender-specific work participation in Indonesia
Hosted by Andy McLennan
This paper contributes to the growing literature on the gender specific effects of globalization in developing countries. We construct a novel measure of exposure to exports for individuals by interacting the province-level Population Gravity Index for a household with the province-level value of exports. We use Indonesian Family Life Survey panel data for 1997, 2000 and 2007 and …find that the effects on various measures of work differ for males and females.
The males' work participation is not responsive to an increase in their exposure to exports, while the females are less likely to work and more likely to be engaged in unpaid household work, along both intensive and extensive margins, with higher exposure to exports. This suggests that the intensification of export exposure in Indonesia has benefited females mostly through an improvement in household income earned by their husbands, but did not create additional working opportunities specifically for women.