Firm Survival and Gender of Firm Owner in Times of COVID-19: Evidence from 10 European Countries

Abstract

This paper uses firm level data from World Bank Enterprise surveys conducted in 2019, and COVID-19 follow-up surveys conducted in 2020, in ten European countries to investigate the link between the gender of the firm’s owner and the firm’s survival until 2020. The empirical investigation uses econometric models that control for the firm’s characteristics that are known to be related to firm survival. The estimated effect of female ownership is positive ceteris paribus. Furthermore, the size of this estimated effect can be considered to be large on average. Having a female owner helped firms to survive.

Keywords

• gender
• female owned firms
• firm survival
• COVID-19
• World Bank Enterprise surveys