Female Innovative Entrepreneurship and Maternity Risk

Abstract

This paper documents the presence of an intensive margin of the gender gap in innovative entrepreneurship: not only there are fewer women than men who become entrepreneurs, but female founders have smaller equity holdings, make smaller investments, and are less likely to be the executive of the firm compared to male founders. Exploiting the deregulation of emergency contraception in Italy, combined with variation in access to abortion services, I find that reducing maternity risk helps close these gaps and makes female-held firms more likely to attract venture capital and enter liquidation in their early stages.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; contraception; gender gap; maternity risk; equity holdings

JEL Classification: G30, L26, M13, J16