Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the relationship between technological upgrading and the female share of employment from 1990 to 2012 for 14 developing countries with significant integration into global value chains. It has policy implications for gender inequality as it relates to technological upgrading.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates the relationship between technological upgrading and the female share of employment from 1990 to 2012 for 14 developing countries with significant integration into global value chains (GVCs). Using accounting decomposition methods, we estimate sectoral contributions (as well as within and between effects) to both labor productivity and the female share of employment for 15 manufacturing industries. We also conduct regression analysis in order to test whether there is a more general relationship between technological upgrading and defeminization within manufacturing industries. Preliminary results suggest the predominance of within sector effects for both labor productivity and the female share of employment as well as a statistically significant negative relationship between the two variables. This research contributes to the literature on the hypothesized causes of the feminization and defeminization of labor and has policy implications for gender inequalities as they relate to technological upgrading.