IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/stc/stcp8e/202400500006e.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Survival and growth of women-owned and immigrant-owned businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Bassirou Gueye

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the Canadian economy. This impact was uneven across different workers and businesses. However, there is little information available on how businesses were affected by and survived through the pandemic according to the characteristics of their owners, especially those owned by certain groups such as women and immigrants. These businesses tend to be more financially constrained, operating more in service sectors that require in-person contacts, and hence more vulnerable to the crisis. This article uses a linkage of the monthly business openings and closures with the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database and the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) to study the survival rate and employment growth of businesses by gender, and immigrant status of owners. Specifically, the goal of this analysis is to determine the survival, closure and growth rates of women-owned (WOBs) and immigrant-owned (IOBs) businesses and compare them with men-owned (MOBs) and Canadian-owned (COBs) businesses, respectively. The results suggest that CEWS take-up rates were similar between MOBs and WOBs at the aggregate level but there were some gender differences across sectors. In addition, at the business sector level, WOBs and MOBs showed comparable survival rates. However, although the gap in survival rates between MOBs and WOBs decreased compared to the pre-pandemic period, WOBs were proportionally less likely to survive than MOBs in some sectors. Furthermore, the difference in survival rates between MOBs and WOBs were generally higher among businesses that did not receive the CEWS. Finally, WOBs that did not use the CEWS were more likely to close during the first year of the pandemic than MOBs. Compared to COBs, IOBs were more commonly found in service sectors and were less inclined to use the CEWS across most sectors. Immigrant-owned businesses were also generally smaller, with over three-quarters of them employing fewer than five employees. Regardless of CEWS usage, IOBs had lower survival rates than COBs across most sectors, especially among smaller businesses. However, the survival rate of IOBs was higher than that of COBs among businesses that did not use the CEWS in the accommodation and food services sector. Among businesses that did not use the CEWS, IOBs were more prone to closure in 2020 or 2022 and less likely to expand their workforce.

Suggested Citation

  • Bassirou Gueye, 2024. "Survival and growth of women-owned and immigrant-owned businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic," Economic and Social Reports 202400500006e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies and Modelling Branch.
    • Handle: RePEc:stc:stcp8e:202400500006e
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.25318/36280001202400500006-eng
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2024005/article/00006-eng.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/36-28-0001/2024005/article/00006-eng.pdf?st=BfnkpqpX
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/https://doi.org/10.25318/36280001202400500006-eng?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liu, Yu & Wei, Siqi & Xu, Jian, 2021. "COVID-19 and Women-Led Businesses around the World," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    2. Timothy Grieder & Mikael Khan & Juan Ortega & Callie Symmers, 2021. "COVID-19’s impact on the financial health of Canadian businesses: An initial assessment," Staff Analytical Notes 2021-8, Bank of Canada.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lafortune, Jeanne & Pugatch, Todd & Tessada, José & Ubfal, Diego, 2022. "Can interactive online training make high school students more entrepreneurial? Experimental evidence from Rwanda," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1041, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Fasano, Francesco & Javier Sánchez-Vidal, F. & La Rocca, Maurizio, 2022. "The role of government policies for Italian firms during the COVID-19 crisis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    3. Booth, Laurence & Chang, Bin & Zhou, Jun, 2023. "The evolution of corporate payout in Canada," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    4. Hao, Haixia & Dong, Jianwei & Wang, Han, 2024. "Helping women rise: Foreign venture capital and female entrepreneurship," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    5. Lafortune, Jeanne & Pugatch, Todd & Tessada, José & Ubfal, Diego, 2024. "Can gamified online training make high school students more entrepreneurial? Experimental evidence from Rwanda," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    6. Fang,Sheng & Goh,Chorching & Li,Shaomin & Xu,L. Colin, 2022. "Firm Resources, Strategies, and Survival and Growth during COVID-19: Evidence from Two-WaveGlobal Surveys," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9997, The World Bank.
    7. Miriam Bruhn & Asli Demirguc-Kunt & Dorothe Singer, 2023. "Competition and firm recovery post-COVID-19," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 1555-1586, December.
    8. Reddy, Ketan & Gopalan, Sasidaran, 2023. "Gender bias in access to trade credit: Firm-level evidence from emerging markets," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    9. Kamaha Njiwa, Marinette & Atif, Muhammad & Arshad, Muhammad & Mirza, Nawazish, 2023. "The impact of female dominance on business resilience: A technology adoption perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    10. Silvia Muzi & Filip Jolevski & Kohei Ueda & Domenico Viganola, 2023. "Productivity and firm exit during the COVID-19 crisis: cross-country evidence," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(4), pages 1719-1760, April.
    11. Khairul Alom & Md. Zillur Rahman & Ashik Imran Khan & Delwar Akbar & Md. Mamun Hossain & Md. Ashraf Ali & Anamika Mallick, 2025. "Digital finance leads women entrepreneurship and poverty mitigation for sustainable development in Bangladesh," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-18, December.
    12. Jesica Torres & Franklin Maduko & Isis Gaddis & Leonardo Iacovone & Kathleen Beegle, 2023. "The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women-Led Businesses," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 38(1), pages 36-72.
    13. Hewa-Wellalage, Nirosha & Boubaker, Sabri & Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Verhoeven, Peter, 2022. "The gender gap in access to finance: Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PA).
    14. Pierre E Biscaye & Dennis Egger & Utz J. Pape, 2025. "Adolescent Schooling and Adult Labor Supply: Evidence from COVID-19 School Closures and Reopenings in Kenya," Post-Print hal-05213752, HAL.
    15. Chiara Franco & Filomena Pietrovito, 2024. "Drivers of firms’ digital activities in response to the Covid-19 pandemic," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 14(3), pages 695-726, September.
    16. Barbakadze, I., 2023. "With a Little Help from My Friend: Political Connections and Allocation of COVID-19 Aid," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2355, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    17. Muh. Ruslan Abdullah & Fasiha Fasiha & Abd. Kadir Arno, 2022. "Reincarnation of MSMEs after the Government's Policy on Economic Recovery Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Indonesia," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 27(1), pages 452-462, January.
    18. Alexander Amundsen & Amélie Lafrance-Cooke & Danny Leung, 2023. "Zombie firms in Canada," Economic and Social Reports 202300300003e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies and Modelling Branch.
    19. Liu,Yu & Peng,Mike W. & Wei,Zuobao & Xu,Jian & Xu,L. Colin, 2021. "Organizational Resources, Country Institutions, and National Culture behind Firm Survival and Growth during COVID-19," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9633, The World Bank.
    20. Iyer, Subramanian Rama & Simkins, Betty J., 2022. "COVID-19 and the Economy: Summary of research and future directions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:stc:stcp8e:202400500006e. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mark Brown (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/stagvca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.