Determinants of the entrepreneurial gender gap in Latin America
Registro en:
10.1007/s11187-016-9789-7
instname:Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano
reponame:Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano
Autor
Bernat, Luisa Fernanda
Lambardi, German
Palacios, Paola
Institución
Resumen
This paper identifies a set of factors
associated with the decision to become an entrepreneur
and the variables that account for the gender gap
in entrepreneurial activity in Latin America. We
estimate logit models for entrepreneurial activity
under three different definitions of an entrepreneur.
We also estimate the gender gap by using Fairlie’s
decomposition method. Depending on the definition of
entrepreneur used, the overall gender gap varies from
4 to 13 % points. Differences in observable characteristics
explain between 23 and 38 % of the total
gender gap. The factors that explain both entrepreneurial
activity and gender gap are: education, risk
tolerance; own car as primary means of transportation;
work satisfaction; and parent business ownership.
Variables such as age, access to loans, and need for
achievement are significantly associated with entrepreneurial
activity, but they play a negligible role in
explaining the gender gap.