Publication: Gender Differences in Informal Labor-Market Resilience
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Published
2022-12-26
ISSN
0258-6770 (print)
1564-698X (online)
1564-698X (online)
Date
2024-03-29
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Abstract
This paper reports on the universe of garment-making-firm owners in a Ghanaian district capital during the COVID-19 crisis. By July 2020, 80 percent of both male- and female-owned firms were operational. However, pre-pandemic data show that selection into persistent closure differs by gender. Consistent with a cleansing effect of recessions and highlighting the presence of marginal female entrepreneurs, female-owned firms that remain closed past the spring lockdown are negatively selected on pre-pandemic sales. The pre-pandemic sales distributions of female survivors and non-survivors are significantly different from each other. Female owners of non-operational firms exit to non-employment and experience large decreases in overall earnings. In contrast, persistently closed male-owned firms are not selected on pre-pandemic firm characteristics. Instead, male non survivors are 36 percentage points more likely than male survivors to have another income-generating activity prior to the crisis. Male owners of persistently closed firms fully compensate for revenue losses in their core businesses with earnings from these alternative income-generating activities. Taken together, the evidence is most consistent with differential underlying occupational choice fundamentals for self-employed men and women in this context.
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“Hardy, Morgan; Litzow, Erin; McCasland, Jamie; Kagy, Gisella. 2022. Gender Differences in Informal Labor-Market Resilience. World Bank Economic Review. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41331 License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO.”
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