The self-employed do not adapt to trade shocks like the salaried, making the most documented responses - unemployment, informality - not automatic in regions with prevalent self-employment. To study this, I use a used clothing import protection policy implemented by Rwanda which hit a self-employed retailers labor market. I provide evidence of this, put forward self-employment-specific adaptation strategies, formalize them through a time allocation framework and test the model’s predictions that workers with lower quality of outside options adapt less, along with workers who can leverage their spouse’s labor to compensate for the shock’s effect. I uncover sizeable heterogeneity in women’s time allocation responses relative to men, suggesting gendered effects of gender-neutral trade policy.

Does gender inequality in parental investment come from them mis-measuring skills from the same objective measures across genders, or from biased conversion of these skills into investment? I adapt a dynamic model of skill formation and parental investment and show gender bias in parental appreciation of the same factor, with consequences on effective capital formation at later develomment stages.