Export Market, Digital Empowerment and Female Skill Demand: Evidence From Online Recruitment Data

ABSTRACT Export expansion inevitably triggers a restructuring of the labour market's supply–demand dynamics while catalysing economic growth. Previous studies predominantly scrutinised the trade–labour market nexus from the point of labour supply or market equilibrium, with relatively scant examinations from the demand perspective. This study adopts skill demand as the focal point and integrates a diverse array of datasets, including enterprises' online recruitment data, O*NET data and assorted macro‐ and micro‐level data. By leveraging the Bartik method, we construct a variable for export demand at the city level to measure the demand level in the export market and empirically probe its impact on enterprises' female skill demand. The results suggest that export market expansion significantly increases the demand for female skills. Consistent with our theoretical analysis, the estimates indicate that this relationship holds because export market expansion promotes technology upgrading of enterprises, promotes market competition and contributes to the formation of egalitarian gender perspectives. Further research indicates that digital economy development plays a positive moderating role in the impact of export market expansion on female skill demand in enterprises.