It is often claimed that the rapid growth in East Asia in recent decades has been due to export-oriented manufacturing growth, which is often attributed to open economic policies. Rapid growth of exports brought about by trade liberalization is also expected to enhance women’s position within the economy. The assumption behind this assertion seems to be that with export growth, the demand for female labour increases faster than for male labour, so that female wages also rise faster than male wages, and eventually converge. These trends are presumed to eliminate labour market rigidities and remove the institutional foundations for gender-based discrimination in labour markets. Thus, globalization is supposed to improve the condition of women by creating manufacturing employment opportunities for them while eliminating gender discrimination in labour markets.

This paper challenges this picture at several levels. Firstly, it argues that East Asian industrialization has been decisively advanced by appropriate government interventions. Protection conditional on export promotion has enabled import-substituting infant industries in these countries to become internationally competitive export-oriented industries. Secondly, it looks more closely at industrial employment in the region by gender and shows that large gender wage gaps characteristic of the region have not closed despite rapid growth and full employment. Finally, this paper also argues that the changing international economic governance associated with the current phase of globalization is likely to constrain further ‘late industrialization’ efforts and limit the economic welfare gains associated with the rapid growth of manufacturing employment in the East Asian region in the second half of the twentieth century.