Recently, the paper Trade Liberalization and Gender Dynamics: The Impact of Policy Uncertainty on Sex Ratios at Birth in China, co-authored by 111 Center researcher Professor Ma Yuanyuan (corresponding author), and research partners He Fan (Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics) and Huang Wei (Peking University), was published online in Journal of Comparative Economics, a top journal in the field of comparative economics.
Highlights
Gender equality is a key driver of economic and social development and is crucial for promoting sustainable development and social welfare. This paper examines how trade liberalization affects the balance of the birth sex ratio. Using data from censuses, household and enterprise surveys, and regional-level data, we apply difference-in-differences and event study methods to identify the key role of declining trade policy uncertainty in promoting the balance of China's birth sex ratio. The results show that in rural households, if the firstborn is a girl, a one-standard-deviation reduction in trade policy uncertainty will lead to an 11.7% decrease in the sex ratio of second-born children. This effect accounts for approximately 60% of the overall reduction in the sex ratio for this group during the same period. Further analysis reveals that the increased bargaining power of women and the cultural spread of gender equality concepts are significant pathways for this impact. This paper highlights the positive role of economic policies in driving social development. It not only offers valuable insights for international trade governance and national population policies but also provides new ideas for improving social equality from the perspective of equal opportunity.
About the Author
Ma Yuanyuan is a professor and doctoral advisor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (ZUEL) and a researcher at the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security's Center for International Cooperation and Disciplinary Innovation of Income Distribution and Public Finance. She has been recognized as a top young professional in Hubei Province and as a Young Scholar of the Wenlan Scholar Program. Her main research areas include health economics, population economics, and public economics. Her research results have been published in authoritative international and domestic journals such as Demography, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Comparative Economics, Health Economics, World Development, and The Journal of World Economy. She has led and participated in several projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Social Science Fund of China. Professor Ma has received the second prize for the Hubei Provincial Social Science Outstanding Achievement Award, the Outstanding Achievement Award in Philosophy and Social Sciences of Higher Education Institutions in Hubei Province, and the first prize for the Hubei Provincial Population Science Award, among other honors. She is a member of the Economic Professional Committee of the Hubei Provincial Committee of China Association for Promoting Democracy, a director of the China Association of Labor Economics, a teaching review expert at University College Dublin, Ireland, a researcher at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) in Germany, a visiting researcher at Trinity College Dublin, and a correspondent reviewer for projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Social Science Fund of China. She also serves as an associate editor for Economics and Human Biology (SSCI).