Evaluating the Impact of Trade Liberalization on Women With Special Reference to the Kingdom of Bahrain

Abstract

The institutional framework of the multilateral trading system (MTS) assumes that trade policies and agreements are gender neutral. There is very little known on the impact of trade liberalization on women, partly because of lack of gender-disaggregated data in trade statistics and partly because of lack of gender awareness in economic analysis. This chapter discusses the issue of trade liberalization and gender gap in general, then the issue of trade liberalization and women employment specifically, to evaluate the impact of trade liberalization on women with special reference to the Kingdom of Bahrain. Finally, the chapter concludes and discusses the policy recommendations as to whether national-level policy recommendations or international ones are necessary to move towards a gender-balanced trading system.