Rethinking trade liberalization from a gender perspective : evidence from free trade agreements : how are gender-related provisions integrated into the European Union’s free trade agreements?

Abstract

Trade liberalization does not inevitably result in women's economic empowerment. Women continue to face higher trade costs. Trade policies have failed to consider how it disproportionately affects women. The European Union (EU) has increased its political discourse around gender equality in all areas of its trade policy. This paper explores the EU’s free trade agreements (FTAs) from a gender dimension and asks the following research question: How are gender-related provisions integrated into the European Union’s free trade agreements? A quantitative and qualitative content analysis will be used to assess 35 trade agreements that are in place between 2000-2022. Gender-related keywords based on the existing literature on trade and gender will be utilized to assess the gender-responsiveness of an agreement, by identifying their frequency and location in the text. The results show that gender responsiveness in the EU’s trade agreements evolved positively between 2000 and 2022 but did not live up to the Union’s rhetoric on prioritizing gender.