Standing at 24% in 2018, India’s female labour force participation is only half of the global average (48%). At the same time, India has one of the widest gender wage gaps in the world and women are less likely to be employed in the formal sector compared to men. This article focuses on how international trade affects relative wages and formal employment between men and women in India. Using the Revealed Symmetrical Comparative Advantage index, sectors of comparative advantage and disadvantage are identified and matched to Indian labour force surveys that contain information on sectoral employment and earnings. We find that sectors of comparative advantage in services have the lowest gender wage gap, with women earning 24% less than their male counterparts, while women in manufacturing earned on average 40% less than male workers. Using the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, we find that the total gender wage gap in sectors of comparative advantage in services are minor while it is quite substantial in manufacturing, regardless of comparative advantage status. The article concludes that services trade goes hand in hand with a smaller gender wage gap as women leverage their skills better in services than in manufacturing.

JEL Codes: F16, F14

印度的女性劳动力参与人数在2018年占24％，仅为全球平均水平（48％）的一半。同时，印度是世界上性别工资差距最大的国家之一，与男性相比，女性在正规部门工作的可能性较小。本文重点讨论国际贸易如何影响印度男女之间的相对工资和正式就业。使用显示的对称比较优势指数，可以确定比较优势和劣势的部门，并将其与包含有关部门就业和收入信息的印度劳动力调查相匹配。我们发现，服务业具有相对优势的部门性别工资差距最低，女性的收入比男性低24％，而制造业的女性平均比男性低40％。使用瓦哈卡-布林德分解，我们发现，在具有比较优势的服务部门中，总的性别工资差距很小，而在制造业中则是相当大的，而与比较优势地位无关。该文章的结论是，服务贸易与性别工资差距缩小并存，因为妇女在服务业比在制造业中更好地利用了自己的技能。

JEL代码：F16，F14