When a non-gendered start-up policy delivers for female entrepreneurs: Evidence from the UK start-up loan scheme

This research contributes to the state of knowledge on gender aspects of entrepreneurship and SME-promoting policies from the perspective of the United Kingdom. In this paper, we draw upon the largest public policy intervention aimed explicitly at fostering new business start-ups, the Start-Up Loan (SUL) scheme. Since its inception in 2012 until the present day, question whether female start-up entrepreneurs were over-represented in terms of scheme participation, which would be the case if the barriers they face when seeking to start a new business are greater than their male peers. First, the study exploits available secondary data from the Eurostat and Global Entrepreneurship Monitor to determine the participation of females in entrepreneurship during the last decades. Second, we exploit the administrative data of the participants of the SUL scheme between 2012 and 2022 (N = 98,026). Methodologically, the study relies on summary statistical tools and estimation of the Cox proportional hazard models, predicting the loan default rates of the supported individuals across genders. With an average female representation of 40% over the last decade on the SUL scheme, which is significantly higher than in the UK business population, a very positive and unintended consequence of the scheme is that tens of thousands of female entrepreneurs were given the support that, in its absence, may have prevented or discouraged them from starting their new business. Furthermore, females participating in the SUL scheme have lower hazard rates than males.