ifo researcher Potrafke: Women have benefited from globalization
According to ifo researcher Niklas Potrafke, women in developing countries have benefited from globalization. “One of the little-noticed consequences of globalization over the past 30 years has been how it has helped advance gender equality,” says Potrafke, Director of the ifo Center for Public Finance and Political Economy, on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
According to ifo Institute research, there are two reasons for this. Social globalization has opened up flows of ideas across borders, meaning that women could study new ways of life via television, the Internet, and other media. “This has enabled them to influence the attitudes towards social roles prevailing in their own country to their own benefit,” Potrafke says. “Economic globalization, meanwhile, has seen foreign trade and direct investments by foreign companies also importing models of social roles and paradigms of Western companies into developing countries. These days, it is back in fashion to bad-mouth globalization. But if we limit the exchange of goods, we also limit the exchange of ideas—and that would be a step backwards in terms of the development of society in many countries.”
Publication
Potrafke, Niklas, "The evidence on globalization", World Economy 38 (3), 2015, 509–552, Working paper version available as: CESifo Working Paper 4708 (PDF)
Potrafke, Niklas and Heinrich W. Ursprung, "Globalization and gender equality in the course of development", European Journal of Political Economy 28 (4), 2012, 399–413
