Assessing the impact of foreign ownership on firm performance by size: evidence from firms in developed and developing countries

This paper analyses the effect of foreign ownership on female employment using micro-level data from the Chilean Manufacturing Survey. Particularly, it examines whether foreign-acquired firms hire proportionately more female workers than domestic firms. To control for the possible endogeneity of the foreign acquisition decision, we use propensity score matching combined with a difference-indifferences approach. In addition, we compare firms operating in the same industry-year. Our results show that foreign ownership increases the share of female workers within the firm. One year after acquisition the share of female workers is 1.64 percentage points higher in acquired firms than in non-acquired firms, and this figure increases to 3.55 percentage points two years after acquisition. When we separate female workers into skilled and unskilled categories, we observe that the positive effect of foreign acquisition is present only for skilled women. One year after acquisition, the share of skilled women is 4.60 percentage points higher in acquired firms than in non-acquired ones, and two years after acquisition this figure increases to 6.63 percentage points. We also present evidence that foreign acquisition increases the share of skilled women only when the acquired firm was not an exporter before its acquisition, supporting Becker’s (1957) theory on tastebased discrimination.