Women and Entrepreneurship: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Despite a growing literature on female entrepreneurs, conflicting evidence abounds about how gender influences the entrepreneurial experience. We develop a demand-side theoretical perspective on gender and entrepreneurship and then use it to motivate a meta-analysis on how gender is associated with a wide range of antecedents and outcomes in entrepreneurship. We also develop a technique for meta-analytically synthesizing regression coefficients, which may be of general interest. Our analysis helps resolve some longstanding debates in the literature and also identifies new questions for future research. We find that, relative to men, women are less likely to pursue entrepreneurship at every stage of the process, are less likely to be granted external funding, and receive funding on inferior terms. Ventures led by women are smaller and grow more slowly but may be more profitable than ventures led by men. In general, women’s relative performance is worse in the USA, but they seem to do better there in terms of profitability. Differences in human capital and venture industry partly explain gender disparities in entrepreneurial outcomes, but venture size does not.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, gender, research synthesis, venture, meta-analysis

JEL Classification: J16, L26