ABSTRACT
Since its inception in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, the European Union’s (EU) trade policy has aimed to lower barriers to trade beyond the EU’s borders, mirroring the liberalising underpinning of the EU’s single market project. With the exception of agriculture, the EU has pursued trade liberalisation within the World Trade Organization (WTO) and through its own preferential trade agreements (PTA) and trade policies to support an economic growth agenda. However, trade liberalisation is not uniformly beneficial (Dunkley 2003). The United Nations (UN), developmental non-governmental organisations (NGO) and feminist scholars have highlighted the gendered effects of trade liberalisation (Carr and Williams 2010; Randriamaro 2006). Whilst liberalisation can increase jobs for some women (Nordas 2003), it can also lead to increased jobs in poor conditions (UNCTAD/DITC/2014/3), and lost government income from tariff cuts can result in reduced social spending, which disproportionately affects women (Williams 2007).
