Publication:
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women-Led Businesses

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dc.contributor.authorTorres, Jesica
dc.contributor.authorMaduko, Franklin
dc.contributor.authorGaddis, Isis
dc.contributor.authorIacovone, Leonardo
dc.contributor.authorBeegle, Kathleen
dc.date.accessioned2023-08-15T16:40:55Z
dc.date.available2023-08-15T16:40:55Z
dc.date.issued2022-03-29
dc.description.abstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has struck businesses across the globe with unprecedented impacts. The world economy has been hit hard and firms have experienced a myriad of challenges, but these challenges have been heterogeneous across firms. This paper examines one important dimension of this heterogeneity: the differential effect of the pandemic on women-led and men-led businesses. The paper exploits a unique sample of close to 40,000 mainly formal businesses from 49 countries covering the months between April and September 2020. The findings show that women-led micro-businesses, women-led businesses in the hospitality industry, and women-led businesses in countries more severely affected by the COVID-19 shock were disproportionately hit compared with businesses led by men. At the same time, women-led micro-firms were markedly more likely to report increasing the use of digital platforms, but less likely to invest in software, equipment, or digital solutions. Finally, the findings also show that women-led businesses were less likely to have received some form of public support although they have been hit harder in some domains. In a crisis of the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence tracing the impact of the shock in a timely fashion is desperately needed to help inform the design of policy interventions. This real-time glimpse into women-led businesses fills this need for robust and policy-relevant evidence, and due to the large country coverage of the data, it is possible to identify patterns that extend beyond any one country, region, or sector, but at the cost of some granularity for testing more complex economic theories.en
dc.identifier.citationThe World Bank Research Observer
dc.identifier.doi10.1596/40195
dc.identifier.issn0257-3032 (print)
dc.identifier.issn1564-6971 (online)
dc.identifier.urihttps://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/40195
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherPublished by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
dc.relation.ispartofseriesWorld Bank Research Observer
dc.rightsCC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO
dc.rights.holderWorld Bank
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/
dc.subjectCOVID-19
dc.subjectFIRMS
dc.subjectGENDER
dc.subjectUNCERTAINTY
dc.subjectENTREPRENEURSHIP
dc.titleThe Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women-Led Businessesen
dc.typeJournal Article
dspace.entity.typePublication
okr.associatedcontenthttps://academic.oup.com/wbro/article/38/1/36/6555699 Journal website (version of record)
okr.crossref.titleThe Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women-Led Businesses
okr.date.disclosure2023-08-15
okr.date.doiregistration2025-04-25T02:24:07.689699Z
okr.doctypePublications & Research::Journal Article
okr.identifier.doi10.1093/wbro/lkac002
okr.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1596/40195
okr.language.supporteden
okr.pagenumber36–72
okr.peerreviewAcademic Peer Review
okr.region.geographicalWorld
okr.topicSocial Protections and Labor::Employment and Unemployment
okr.topicGender::Gender and Economics
okr.topicGender::Gender and Law
okr.volume38 (1)
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