Is there an impact of Foreign Direct Investments on gender equality? A study of female employment in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract: Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is a part of the globalization process, a process increasing all over the world. These investments affect people, both in the home economy and the host economy. People in the host economy are, due to several aspects, affected in different ways. One of those aspects is gender. Gender inequality in the world is well known, women have less political, economic and social power than men, and they are further down in the social hierarchy. All these factors have an impact on how women are affected by development such as globalization in general and also FDI more specifically. Earlier research regarding FDI is almost gender blind, some studies exist but not to a broad extent. Since men and women have different positions in society the impact of FDI can be assumed to be different. In order to include a gender perspective we examine whether FDI has an impact on women’s situation and on gender equality, and in that case whether the impact is positive or negative. We perform fixed effect estimation on a sample of 24 Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries during the time period 1990-2013 in order to study the relationship between FDI and female labour force participation (FLFP). We also study the impact of FDI on the composition of the labour force. The regressions show some signs of FDI having an impact on gender equality, but the results are not robust and there is a need for further research within this subject.