Identity politics and trade preferences: how the gendered and racialised effects of trade matter

There is a considerable body of evidence that shows differentiated levels of support for trade based on identity characteristics, such as gender and race. Yet much of this work focuses on the US, with little evidence of how this relationship might operate amongst the US’ trade partners. This article examines how the racialised and gendered effects of trade matter for individuals’ trade preferences in Canada. Using an online, nationally representative survey, we combine a unique implementation of multidimensional preference scaling and two survey experiments to determine: (1) How people think of trade-offs between industry sectors that are affected by trade and (2) whether using identity priming about occupations as gendered or racialised affects their views about trade and state support for affected workers. Our observational data and pre-registered experiments demonstrate that Canadians’ trade attitudes reflect internalised beliefs about the gendered construction of the economy but are highly resistant to new information and either gendered or racialised identity priming, suggesting in-group favouritism and out-group anxiety are not activated in the same way outside of the US as within. This article thus contributes to growing work on the connections between gender inequality and racial discrimination in international trade politics.