gender

Gender gaps in policy attitudes have been widely observed across various issue areas, yet there has been less focus on gender dynamics in International Political Economy (IPE). In this research, I explore women’s labor market experiences and the gender gap in economic policy attitudes through survey experiments and item response theory models.

Working Papers:

1. Protectionism Reconsidered: Economic Insecurity and the Gender Gap in Trade Attitudes
   Abstract

   While previous research has revealed a gender gap in trade attitudes and the rise of populism and economic protectionism, it has paid less attention to why women continue to support protectionism despite their lack of populist attitudes. The gender gap in trade attitudes has not closed despite the rise of populism, which has taken place particularly among men. Why are women consistently more protectionist than men, and when does men's populism turn into protectionism? I examine the causal process of preference formation across genders using a decomposition analysis, a survey experiment, and structural topic models. I argue that economic insecurity leads both women and men to form protectionist attitudes. My findings suggest that, for women, persistent gender discrimination leads to the perception of negative trade effects on their gender group, fostering protectionism. For men, stochastic trade shocks activate populism, which transforms into protectionism when they perceive adverse trade effects on their country.

2. Measuring Women’s Experiences in Gendered Labor Markets
   Abstract

   This paper examines whether gender policy indicators (GPIs) accurately reflect women's economic rights in practice. Despite international and state-level efforts, it remains unclear if these legal advancements have improved women's real-world labor market experiences. Existing GPIs often overlook country-specific contexts and latent heterogeneity, leading to an incomplete understanding of gender inequality. To address this gap, I use item response theory (IRT) and Women, Business, and Law (WBL) data to create the Latent Gender Equality (LGE) Index, a time-series cross-sectional measure of gender equality in 187 countries from 1991 to 2017.

3. Automation, Economic Insecurity, and Gendered Social Policy Attitudes: Evidence from South Korea (with Jae-wook Lee)
   Abstract

   This study explores how automation-induced economic insecurity affects gendered social policy preferences in South Korea, a country with high exposure to automation and significant gender inequality. We argue that the devaluation of female labor results in less support for social policies when automation displaces female workers, as women are often not seen as primary breadwinners, and female-dominated job loss is viewed as more acceptable. Our survey experiment finds mixed results: while support for social protection does not differ based on the gender of those affected by automation, there is increased support for slowing automation when male workers are laid off, suggesting a bias toward protecting men's jobs. Moreover, this bias is stronger among respondents with sexist attitudes. Contrary to expectations, high automation risk does not reduce discriminatory views but amplifies them. These findings highlight that economic insecurity does not generate uniform support for all groups, emphasizing the importance of addressing both job displacement and gender inequality in policy design.

4. The Political Economy of Family: How Empathy and Risk-Sharing Fuel Protectionism and the Welfare State (with Thomas M. Flaherty)

Work in Progress:

1. Reassessing Gender Gaps in Foreign Policy
2. Gender Bias and Implicit Attitudes Toward Refugees (with Liwu Gan)