Female Entrepreneurs, Digital Tools, and Work-Life Balance: Evidence from Small Businesses around the World

Abstract

Using a cross-section of 23,033 small businesses across 42 countries, we provide one of the first empirical investigations of digital technology use among male and female entrepreneurs. We show that there is a digital gender gap but it is not uniform across digital tools; female entrepreneurs use digital tools that support interactions with external stakeholders (i.e., advertising) to the same extent as male entrepreneurs but are less likely to use digital tools for internal firm management activities (e.g., finance), likely due to gender disparity in digital skills. We also find that female founders who face higher levels of non-work related demands, particularly those that start firms in countries without institutional support for work-life conflicts, have a higher intensity of digital tool use.

Keywords: Female Entrepreneurship, Digital Technology Adoption, Work-Life Balance

JEL Classification: J16, J22, L26