Hardy, MorganLitzow, ErinMcCasland, JamieKagy, Gisella2024-03-292024-03-292022-12-26The World Bank Economic Review0258-6770 (print)1564-698X (online)https://hdl.handle.net/10986/41331This 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.en-USCC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGOINFORMALITYFIRMSGENDERCOVID-19Journal ArticleWorld Bank10.1596/41331