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Gender and Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries

Paper Session

Friday, Jan. 6, 2023 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (CST)

Hilton Riverside, Jackson
Hosted By: American Economic Association
  • Chair: Gisella Kagy, Vassar College

Gender Barriers, Structural Transformation, and Economic Development

Gaurav Chiplunkar
,
University of Virginia
Tatjana Kleineberg
,
World Bank

Abstract

This paper studies the role of gender in the process of structural transformation and
economic development. We use nationally representative data across multiple countries
and over five decades (1960-2015) to document gender differences in employment and
wages across occupations and sectors. Despite a significant closing of gender differences
in wages and occupational choice over time and across countries, significant gaps still
persist even today. We develop and estimate a general equilibrium model of occupational
and sectoral choice to quantify these gender barriers after accounting for standard economic channels (such as comparative advantage, returns to ability, sorting, etc.). We find
that the initial reduction in occupation and wage gaps between 1960-79 and 1980-99 was
primarily driven by economic channels, while the more recent decline between 1980-99
and 2000-15 was driven by changes in non-economic gender barriers (like social norms,
etc.). We use the estimated model to implement counterfactuals that quantify the effects
of gender barriers on macroeconomic outcomes and structural transformation.

Resisting Social Pressure in the Household Using Mobile Money: Experimental Evidence on Microenterprise Investment in Uganda

Emma Riley
,
University of Washington

Abstract

Sharing norms have been shown to be a key constraint on female enterprise growth in
developing countries. However, these sharing norms generally relate to money held as
cash, and so the shift to digital payments offers the opportunity to circumvent them. In
this paper, I examine whether changing the form that a microfinance loan is disbursed
in, from cash to directly onto a digital account, enables female microfinance borrowers to
grow their businesses. Using a field experiment of 3,000 female borrowers in Uganda, I
compare the disbursement of a loan as cash to the disbursement of a loan onto a mobile
money account. After 8 months, women who received their microfinance loan on the
mobile money account had 11% higher levels of business capital and 15% higher business
profits compared to a control group who received their loan as cash. Total household
income and consumption were also higher. Impacts were greatest for women who experienced pressure to share money with others in the household at baseline, suggesting that
providing the loan in a digital account reduces sharing of the loan with others, to the benefit of both the woman’s business and household. This indicates that widespread mobile
money services can be utilised to improve the performance of female-owned enterprises.

Too Close to Home: Women’s Business Location and the Gender Profit Gap

Solène Delecourt
,
University of California-Berkeley
Anya Marchenko
,
Brown University
Anne Fitzpatrick
,
University of Massachusetts-Boston
Layna Lowe
,
University of California-Berkeley

Abstract

We show that differences in business location contribute to the gender profit gap in
rural Kenya. Using a representative survey of 3,433 businesses across all industries in
our study area, we find that women earn 46% lower profits than men. 13% of the profit
gap can be explained by women operating their businesses from home rather than at
a market center. Women with more childcare responsibilities operate from home at
higher rates than other women and spend more of their business hours performing
childcare. By operating businesses at home, we hypothesize that women trade off
profits for flexibility to fulfill childcare responsibilities.

Mind the Data Gaps: An Examination of Women-Owned Enterprise Representation

Morgan Hardy
,
New York University Abu Dhabi
Gisella Kagy
,
Vassar College
Nusrat Jimi
,
Vassar College

Abstract

Using data from 43 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, we document large variations in women-owned enterprise representation and estimates of gender gaps in enterprise performance between commonly available data sources. We provide empirical evidence that these differences are driven by variations in gender-blind sampling protocols. Women-owned enterprises are less likely to meet the sampling criteria for most widely available enterprise data and those that do are more positively selected on performance, relative to male-owned enterprises. We document differences in implied policy and research priorities; sources with higher women-owned enterprise representation point toward issues of market access, over more commonly studied barriers.

Discussant(s)
Simon Quinn
,
Oxford University
Seema Jayachandran
,
Northwestern University
Nava Ashraf
,
London School of Economics
Markus Goldstein
,
World Bank
JEL Classifications
  • O1 - Economic Development
  • L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior