Gender and the Business Environment for New Firm Creation

By L. Klapper, Simon C. Parker. 2011

387 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The authors summarize the extant literature on the relationship between gender and entrepreneurship. They note significant quantitative gender differences in business entry, with male-owned firms heavily prevailing over firms owned by women in many parts of the world. They find that enterprises owned by men on the one hand and women on the other are generally concentrated in different sectors, women entrepreneurs being better represented in labor intensive sectors such as trade and services rather than capital intensive manufacturing industries. They also observe certain gender differentials in business survival and growth patterns. Yet an analysis of a large body of literature does not suggest that, in general, the so called "gender gap" in entrepreneurship can be explained by explicit discrimination in laws or regulations. Rather, differences in quantitative and qualitative indicators of business entry and performance can in part be explained by a number of business environment factors that disproportionately affect a woman's decision to operate a business in the formal sector. For example the concentration of women in low capital intensive industries--which require less funding and at the same time have a lower potential for growth and development--might also be driven by barriers against women regarding access to finance. Furthermore, women may have relatively less physical and "reputational" collateral than men, which limits their access to finance. Overall the literature suggests that improvements in the business environment can help promote high-growth female entrepreneurship. Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press.

Subfields: Accounting, Management of Technology and Innovation, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0f1a7368f76bc1db420b83250a5f590a9e9cc9f4

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Citations in the corpus

Failure or voluntary exit? Reassessing the female underperformance hypothesis (2015, background): “The survival prospects of female-owned businesses have been the subject of considerable debate over the last two decades (for a review, see Jennings and Brush, 2013; and Klapper and Parker, 2011).”
Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital among Female Microentrepreneurs (2019, background): “…Mel, McKenzie, and Woodruff 2009; Jakiela and Ozier 2016; Fiala 2018 ; women are less committed to growing their enterprises or are more impatient ( Klapper and Parker 2011, Fafchamps et al. 2014 ; and that women sort into less profitable business sectors because of unequal labor market access or…”
The entrepreneurial ladder, gender, and regional development (2012, background): “In terms of perceptual variables, it has been observed that women are less optimistic than men and are often less confident about their entrepreneurial capabilities (Bengtsson et al. 2005; Verheul et al. 2005; Koellinger et al. 2007; Niederle and Vesterlund 2007).”
Political Reservations and Women's Entrepreneurship in India (2013, neutral): “This literature is among the most powerful evidence assembled for the significant economic benefits of gender equality (Duflo, 2005, 2011; Klapper and Parker, 2011; World Bank, 2012).”
Gender stereotyping effects on entrepreneurial self‐efficacy and high‐growth entrepreneurial intention (2013, background): “First, exacerbating the influence of gender stereotyping in entrepreneurship is the fact that certain industries are dominated by either men or women (Anna et al., 1999; Klapper and Parker, 2010; Loscocco and Robinson, 1991) and are thus perceived as masculine versus feminine.”
Strengthening access to finance for women-owned SMEs in developing countries (2015, neutral): “Norms persist and reinforce gender inequalities in markets and institutions, rendering the goal of gender equality even harder to achieve. One of the few studies that attempts to quantify the impact of culture(58) finds that the effect persists even after controlling for possible indirect effects of”
Gender gap in latent and nascent entrepreneurship: driven by competitiveness (2013, background): “Based on a survey of the extant literature on the relationship between gender and entrepreneurship, Klapper and Parker (2010) conclude that the gender gap in entrepreneurship cannot be explained by explicit discrimination in laws and regulations but can in part be explained by business environment f”
Biology and Selection into Entrepreneurship—The Relevance of Prenatal Testosterone Exposure (2016, background): “Males are, on average, more willing to take risks than females (Croson & Gneezy, 2009) and a higher proportion of males engage in entrepreneurial activities as compared with females (Bönte & Piegeler, 2013; Klapper & Parker, 2011).”