Globalization and the Gender Gap

Jan 19, 2023

A woman works in a factory. Photo by Mikhail Nilov

A woman working in a manufacturing plant. Photo by Mikhail Nilov.

A woman faculty member visits with two students at an outdoor table. — Hâle Utar (center) with students on the Grinnell campus.

Working men still earn more than working women.

This earnings gap persists, despite women’s gains in education and workforce participation since World War II. According to the Pew Research Center, women on average make about 84 cents for every dollar earned by a man.

Hâle Utar, the Sidney Meyer Professor in International Economics, is exploring how import competition from China and the “biological clock” affect the gender gap in earnings among workers in Denmark. With her co-author Wolfgang Keller, a professor of economics at the University of Colorado, Utar recently published an article titled “Globalization, Gender, and the Family” in the Review of Economic Studies.

Utar’s research focuses on globalization and international trade. She studies how companies, labor markets, and industries change and adjust to globalization and the challenges and opportunities it presents. Exploring how globalization affects gender and the family was a natural next step, Utar says.

The fact that women, but not men, give birth and the fact that women can give birth only during a specific period of their lives, places a particular choice on women between childbearing and bearing the cost of adjustment to globalization.

Hâle Utar, Sidney Meyer Professor in International Economics

Understanding these issues is complicated, Utar says. However, one factor has an outsized influence on the earnings gap between men and women — “the fact that only half of the population can give birth and can do so in a specific period of their life.”

Gender and age influence how workers react to workplace setbacks such as job loss, Utar says. When women are nearing the end of their childbearing years, they often respond to workplace disruptions by choosing to have a child, taking parental leave, and focusing on their families. Men, on the other hand, frequently choose to focus on new job skills and opportunities; thus, they adjust to the new circumstances more successfully.

The result, Utar says, is that women fall behind their male counterparts in the labor market and bear a disproportionate economic burden as society adjusts to globalization. “Women, unfortunately, face a tradeoff between careers and childbirth-related family commitments.”

“The fact that women, but not men, give birth and the fact that women can give birth only during a specific period of their lives, places a particular choice on women between childbearing and bearing the cost of adjustment to globalization,” Utar says. “This choice turns into an earnings disadvantage for women in the longer term.”

Of course, globalization is multifaceted, and this research focuses on only one aspect of it. “Globalization also expands job opportunities in other sectors and brings new technology that eases our lives,” Utar says. “As some jobs and some sectors will thrive, grow, and become more productive, others will shrink. This is the nature of economic growth, and globalization brings economic growth.”