Beyond Barriers: The Gender Implications of Trade Liberalization in Latin America

The document examines how trade liberalization in Latin America has affected men and women differently, focusing on the 'feminization' of precarious jobs in non-traditional agro-exports and the urban labour market. It highlights a mismatch between available skills and market demand, leading to higher unemployment and underemployment for women. While some women gained bargaining power through new income sources, the overall impact on gender equity remains inconclusive due to data gaps and the overlapping effects of broader macroeconomic reforms.

• Trade liberalization in Latin America has led to the 'feminization of exporting jobs', where labour-intensive industries seek women for 'feminine' skills such as obedience and manual dexterity, often providing precarious positions with few social benefits.
• Technological upgrading in export operations often results in a 'glass ceiling' or 'defeminization of jobs', where women hired for unskilled roles are replaced by men as new technology is introduced.
• In urban labour markets, trade liberalization contributed to a mismatch between supplied skills and market demand, causing unemployment to hit the female working-age population harder than the male population.
• Employment in non-traditional agricultural exports, such as cut flowers in Colombia and Ecuador or fruits in Chile, has provided some women with first-time monetized earnings, which can improve their bargaining power and autonomy within the household.
• The impact of trade liberalization on rural women is complex; while some find wage work, others face increased vulnerability as a result of the increase in female-headed rural households and the elimination of distribution channels for small producers.
• In the urban sector, a significant portion of new jobs created during the 1990s were in the informal sector, which lacks social benefits and often involves wages below the minimum standard.
• A rigorous assessment of gender impacts is hindered by a lack of disaggregated data on male and female activities and a lack of time-series data to quantify changes over time.

APA

Ventura-Dias, V. (2010). Beyond Barriers: The Gender Implications of Trade Liberalization in Latin America. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/beyond_barriers_gender_latin_america.pdf

Chicago

Ventura-Dias, Vivianne. Beyond Barriers: The Gender Implications of Trade Liberalization in Latin America. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2010. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/beyond_barriers_gender_latin_america.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ventura-Dias |first1=Vivianne |title=Beyond Barriers: The Gender Implications of Trade Liberalization in Latin America |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=2010 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/beyond_barriers_gender_latin_america.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{venturadias2010beyond, author = {Ventura-Dias, Vivianne}, title = {{Beyond Barriers: The Gender Implications of Trade Liberalization in Latin America}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2010}, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/beyond_barriers_gender_latin_america.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }