Can Women’s Social Capital Mitigate the Gendered Disadvantage in Firm Growth?

• In Event: 355 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Gender and the Economy

Abstract

Can social capital help traditionally disadvantaged groups mitigate poor outcomes when they start new businesses? It has been established that gendered barriers exist in entrepreneurship and women-owned firms tend to acquire less capital, experience limited growth and revenue, and concentrate in industries that have lower growth potential. Using a dataset on voluntary organizations that serve women entrepreneurs, I examine whether the density of outreach organizations for women entrepreneurs improves the performance of local women-owned firms. The study finds that the density of voluntary organizations is weakly associated with a firm’s growth in return on assets. These preliminary findings provide good tinder for future studies to explore the processes by which these mitigating effects take place.

Author

• Tina Ching-Tien Lee, Princeton University