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Gender productivity gap: does gender-equal ownership compensate for female entrepreneurs’ lack of prior industry experience?

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  • Douwere Grekou

    (Statistics Canada)

  • Jenny Watt

    (Statistics Canada)

  • Horatio M. Morgan

    (University of Waterloo)

Abstract

Female entrepreneurs often have less prior industry knowledge or experience than male entrepreneurs. To ameliorate the adverse consequences for business performance, they could equally co-own ventures with their experienced male peers. Using a representative sample of 183,358 new ventures in Canada, we explore this under-investigated issue by analyzing the labour productivity of women-owned and equally-owned ventures, relative to men-owned ventures, from 2006 to 2017. We also quantify the influence of the principal owners’ prior industry experience on the relative labour productivity of women-owned and equally-owned ventures. Our regression analyses show that women-owned and equally-owned ventures are 16.5% and 5.9% less productive than men-owned ventures, respectively. We also confirm that women-owned ventures realize productivity gains from having experienced female owners. Meanwhile, we find that equally-owned ventures yield productivity gains only when they comprise experienced male co-owners and inexperienced female co-owners. More generally, we contribute new evidence-based insights on the gender productivity gap and why gender-equal ownership can help.

Suggested Citation

  • Douwere Grekou & Jenny Watt & Horatio M. Morgan, 2023. "Gender productivity gap: does gender-equal ownership compensate for female entrepreneurs’ lack of prior industry experience?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(4), pages 1543-1571, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:60:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s11187-022-00659-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s11187-022-00659-w
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm performance; Gender-equal ownership; Gender productivity gap; Labour productivity; Prior industry experience;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics

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