WIDE Briefing Paper

Gender Indicators for Monitoring Trade Agreements
Irene van Staveren, February 2007

Mainstreaming gender into trade policy is an important matter: trade impacts on gender relations in a variety of ways. Gender impacts may be positive or negative, depending on the pattern of trade, the values of imports and exports, the sectoral distribution of exports and import competition, the skill level of male and female employment, labour market policies and institutions, laws and the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, the gender division of labour in households, and the cultural pattern of male and female roles in the economy at large, including the unpaid economy.

In this briefing paper, Irene van Staveren develops a tool for policy makers to mainstream gender equality goals in trade agreements. The proposed tool consists of a set of gender and trade indicators. The briefing paper discusses the methodology chosen for the development of the indicator; it presents eleven indicators, and illustrates their use in relation to the bilateral trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and the four Southern American countries, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay, associated in Mercosur.

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