Table 4. <u>GVC, Female Labor Force Participation, and Gender Provisions in RTAs</u>

|||||(a)Al<br>|l Regions<br>||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Female O|wnership|Female Top|Manager|Female E|mployees|Female Produ|ction Workers|
|Variables|GVC1|GVC4|GVC1|GVC4|GVC1|GVC4|GVC1|GVC4|
|(1)GVC|0.038***|-0.046|0.001|-0.001|0.131***|0.463***|0.378***|0.525***|
||(0.009)|(0.032)|(0.006)|(0.015)|(0.024)|(0.101)|(0.056)|(0.068)|
|(2)Gender Provisions|0.050***<br>(0.007)|0.050***<br>(0.007)|-0.048***<br>(0.006)|-0.048***<br>(0.006)|0.066***<br>(0.014)|0.065***<br>(0.013)|-0.246***<br>(0.028)|-0.232***<br>(0.029)|
|GVC*Gender Prov.|-0.001***<br>(0.0002)|-0.001***<br>(0.001)|-0.0004***<br>(0.0001)|-0.0001<br>(0.0003)|-0.001**<br>(0.001)|-0.001<br>(0.002)|-0.002**<br>(0.001)|-0.003**<br>(0.001)|
|Country dummies|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|Year dummies|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|Sector dummies|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|Observations|83,949|83,949|84,341|84,341|41,227|41,227|41,237|41,237|
|R-squared|0.116|0.116|0.100|0.099|0.548|0.548|0.499|0.495|
|||||(b)ME<br>|NA region<br>||||
||Female O|wnership|Female Top|Manager|Female E|mployees|Female Produ|ction Workers|
|Variables|GVC1|GVC4|GVC1|GVC4|GVC1|GVC4|GVC1|GVC4|
|(1)GVC|0.0770**|-0.0453|0.00582|-0.00854|0.299***|0.427|0.556***|1.061**|
||(0.0312)|(0.0684)|(0.0137)|(0.0437)|(0.0736)|(0.361)|(0.101)|(0.445)|
|(2)Gender Provisions|0.00585|0.00377|0.00417|0.00349|0.114***|0.111***|0.0116|-0.00751|
||(0.00891)|(0.00923)|(0.00311)|(0.00246)|(0.0402)|(0.0393)|(0.0374)|(0.0458)|
|GVC*Gender Prov.|-0.00393|-0.000245|-0.00295|0.00352|0.00269|0.155|-0.0217|-0.0926|
||(0.00881)|(0.0158)|(0.00394)|(0.0113)|(0.0244)|(0.128)|(0.0371)|(0.0938)|
|Year dummies|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|Sector dummies|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|
|Observations|11,714|11,714|11,730|11,730|4,861|4,861|6,864|6,864|
|R-squared|0.064|0.060|0.011|0.010|0.456|0.454|0.472|0.465|

Robust standard errors clustered by country and year in parentheses, *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 Notes: - We control for firms’ age, size, city of operation and the share of government ownership.

- Country dummies have been removed from panel (b) given the high collinearity between countries and provisions. Moreover, our sample drops when we focus only on the MENA region. - The intercept is included.

# **4.2.2. Internal Factors**

In addition to external factors, there is growing evidence that an adverse business environment impedes firms’ performance and hence negatively affect women’s participation. Thus, the impact of GVC on women can also be moderated through the characteristics of the investment climate. This can be explained by two main reasons.

Investment climate affects trade performance and GVC integration. Dovis and Zaki (2020) show that the number of days that are required to pay taxes, the number of procedures that are necessary to register property, and the time to export and to import have a significantly negative relationship with the likelihood of a firm’s integration into a GVC. In the same vein, Aboushady and Zaki (2019), using the WBES for Egypt, show that access to finance, tax payments and competition from the informal sector affect the firms’ decision to become exporters, which is a part of GVCs. Second, several constraints hinder women’s participation. Indeed, ILO (2021) argues that women’s access to finance and markets, their land and property rights, and business registration and informality are key issues to be addressed to increase women’s participation in the labor market. In addition, the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law index providing the link between legal gender equality and women’s economic inclusion shows that the MENA and South Asia regions have the lowest index score (World Bank 2020b). The workplace indicator shows that, in many countries, the law does not prohibit gender-based employment discrimination that 17