Trade – A Driving Force for Jobs and Women’s Empowerment? Focus on China and India `Üêáëí~=táÅÜíÉêáÅÜ= 1. Gender and Trade Trade liberalisation is widely seen as a driving force behind economic growth and poverty reduction. Proponents of neoliberal economics such as the World Bank 1 and economist Jagdish Bhagwati 2 suggest that trade liberalisation is a driving force for gender equality as well. They regard free markets as the best mechanisms for resource allocation, wealth creation and distribution, and the narrowing of gender gaps. This is based on the assumption that trade produces growth, and that growth will open up opportunities for better education, more jobs, higher income, more credit and better opportunities for women entrepreneurs. The spectacular rise of growth rates in China and India, the reduction of poverty in absolute terms and the emergence of new consumer classes are taken as proof of these economic assumptions. Women are depicted as winners in the restructuring of the Indian and Chinese economies and their accelerated integration into the world market, in particular women in export manufacturing, information and communication, and services. However, all these assumptions are highly controversial. Keynesian economists such as Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Dani Rodrik, as well as feminist economists, question the alleged effects of the current trade liberalisation agenda on poverty elimination, fair distribution and gender equity. They highlight the growing inequality and social disparity as the adverse outcomes of an economy that, obsessed with constant growth, subordinates social concerns to competitiveness. Feminists stress that competitive advantage often comes at a heavy price, in the form of discrimination against e women and gender gaps.3 National economies as gendered processes of production, reproduction and consumption experience profound change as a result of the opening up of markets and trade liberalisation. A wealth of research is available that shows that trade policies, like any other economic policy, involve and affect men and women differently. This gender differential is informed by and based on the gender division of labour(both in the market and the household), women’s and men’s different access to and control over resources such as assets, rights and time, and also cultural ascriptions of gender stereotypes and norms. Feminist economists and gender activists have been able to get UN organisations, the World Bank and even the WTO to acknowledge their concerns about gender inequalities resulting from trade liberalisation and trade policies. UNCTAD carried out a gender analysis of the different WTO agreements with a view to assessing whether 1 World Bank(2006), Gender Equality as Smart Economics. Gender Action Plan 2007–2010, Washington. 2 Bhagwati, Jagdish(2004), In Defense of Globalization, Oxford. 3 Seguino, Stephanie(2000),‘Gender Inequality and Economic Growth: A Cross ‐ country Analysis”, in: World Development 28: 1211–30.