Debates on agricultural tariffs often overlook the everyday realities of women in developing economies, despite their central role as farmers, workers, and household managers. New evidence from the Household Impacts of Trade for Women dataset shows that tariff policies disproportionately affect women, who tend to bear higher costs when trade barriers are in place and benefit more when those barriers are reduced.
The dataset, covering over half a million households across 54 low and lower-middle-income countries, provides detailed gender-disaggregated insights into how trade policies impact welfare. By incorporating factors such as consumption, production, and income sources, it reveals that reducing agricultural tariffs can increase household welfare overall, with female-headed households experiencing greater average gains than male-headed ones.
The findings highlight how tariffs disadvantage women across multiple economic roles. As producers, women are less likely to own land or control agricultural output, limiting their ability to benefit from higher prices created by protectionist policies. As workers, they are often concentrated in informal and lower-paid roles, meaning wage gains from protected sectors tend to bypass them.
The largest burden falls on women as consumers. Female-headed households typically spend a higher proportion of their income on food and essential goods, so tariffs that raise prices on staples effectively act as a hidden tax. This makes everyday living more expensive, particularly for households already facing financial constraints.
The dataset fills a long-standing gap in trade analysis by providing gender-sensitive data that allows policymakers to better understand who benefits from and who is harmed by trade policies. It shows that female-headed households consistently experience greater welfare improvements from trade liberalization across income levels.
Overall, the evidence challenges the assumption that agricultural protection benefits the most vulnerable. Instead, it demonstrates that tariffs often place a heavier burden on women, reinforcing the need for more inclusive trade policies supported by social protections and targeted investments to ensure equitable outcomes.
