Gender Participation Parity in National Labor Markets and Its Associations with Logistics Performance and Transport Carbon Intensity

This study examines associations between national labor market gender participation parity, the international trade logistics environment, and national transport carbon intensity. The measures describe distinct domains; they do not directly measure women’s inclusion in logistics occupations or freight-only emissions. An unbalanced panel covers seven historical Logistics Performance Index (LPI) editions. Country and wave fixed effects models use the preceding year female-to-male labor force participation ratio and country-clustered standard errors. The LPI model includes 986 observations from 159 economies; the fully adjusted carbon model includes 822 observations from 152 economies. The within-country evidence is inconclusive for overall LPI (β = 0.0034, 95% CI [−0.0024, 0.0092], p = 0.243) and all six components (Benjamini–Hochberg q ≥ 0.369). Pooled and between-country associations are more precisely positive, but limited within-country variation and possible time-varying confounding constrain interpretation. The carbon estimate is imprecise in the fully adjusted model (β = −0.0022, p = 0.616). Common sample comparisons show that both sample composition and added controls contribute to its attenuation. The interaction with LPI is also inconclusive (p = 0.481). These findings neither establish causal policy effects nor demonstrate the absence of longer-term or sector-specific relationships. They support more precise measurement and separate evaluation of social participation, logistics capability, and transport emissions.