Research On The Influence Of Cross-border Digital Trade On Female Employment In China

As one of the important forms of business in the modern international trading system,cross-border digital trade has developed at an impressive speed,become a new engine of global economic growth,and is changing the number,areas and ways of employment.Digital trade is characterized by lower production and transaction costs,higher organic composition of capital,platform of transactions and network of supply chain.These characteristics have also given birth to new business forms,new occupations and new employment modes,bringing good news to the employment of women in China.In this context,from the perspective of female employment,this paper uses the data of 31 provincial panels from 2010 to 2020 to empirically study the impact of cross-border digital trade on domestic female employment.The paper firstly analyzes the development of digital trade and the direct and indirect effects of cross-border digital trade on domestic female employment;then examines the influence of cross-border digital trade on female employment by fixed effect model,and conducts a series of tests on robustness and heterogeneity;and finally,the mechanism of cross-border digital trade on female employment was analyzed through the test of mediation effect and regulation effect.The results show that:(1)a series of robustness test estimates show that cross-border digital trade has a significant positive effect on the employment of Chinese women.(2)Heterogeneity analysis found that the impact of cross-border digital trade on female employment has regional and temporal heterogeneity: the promotion effect of cross-border digital trade on female employment is greater than that before the introduction of the policy;cross-border digital trade in non-coastal areas on female employment is stronger than that in coastal areas.(3)Intermediation effect shows that cross-border digital trade promotes the expansion of female employment scale by promoting the upgrading of industrial structure.(4)The adjustment effect shows that the higher the level of female human capital,the more obvious cross-border digital trade promotes the scale of female employment;the higher the index of economic freedom,the more beneficial cross-border digital trade is to female employment.Finally,countermeasures and suggestions are put forward from the aspects of accelerating the construction of digital infrastructure,strengthening the development of digital trade,narrowing the difference in women’s employment between regions,improving the ability of women’s ability to participate in the development of cross-border digital trade,unswervingly expanding the level of opening to the outside world and speeding up the speed of digital trade enabling industry.