Meta-analysis: global value chains and employment

Abstract

For most of the past half-century, a significant number of companies have carried out a process of transformation of production chains by offshoring parts, components, or services to other countries. The integration of most economies into global value chains (GVCs) has triggered important impacts on several dimensions of the labour markets. In view of the divergent results reported by the related literature, we conduct a meta-analysis on the effects of GVCs on employment. We find that although the average impact is not statistically different from zero, the impact of GVCs on employment differs significantly according to the countries’ development level, the degree of workers’ qualifications, the types of sectors that are considered, the unit of analysis, and the indicators used to measure GVCs and employment.