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01.02.2010

Gender and field of study as determinants of self-employment

verfasst von: Thomas Leoni, Martin Falk

Erschienen in: Small Business Economics | Ausgabe 2/2010

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Abstract

This article concentrates on gender differences among university graduates with respect to self-employment. We investigate the characteristics of self-employed men and women, focusing in particular on the contribution of field of study as a determinant of the gender gap in self-employment rates. Our approach is based on probit regressions and on the application of a non-linear decomposition technique to the gender gap in self-employment. We find that age and field of study account for two-thirds of the observed gender gap in self-employment.

Vorheriger Artikel Process innovations and firm productivity growth

Nächster Artikel Corporate taxes and the demand for labor and capital in developing countries

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For instance, our own calculations indicate that in Austria, almost all university graduates with a degree in agriculture are employed in the agricultural industry; an almost complete overlap can also be found for education as a field of study and the educational sector. Note that the agricultural sector is excluded in the following empirical analysis.

This decision was taken in the course of the peer review process and serves to highlight the role of education choice in the gender gap in SE. In Sect. 6 of the article, in which we present our results, we discuss the sensitivity of our results to the inclusion of information on field of occupation.

The relevance of liquidity constraints may differ greatly among countries and the conclusions reached by Hurst and Lusardi (2002), which are based on U.S. data, might not apply to countries with less developed credit markets.

There are some exceptions: According to Georgellis and Wall (2005), in the period 1984–1997 in Germany, women and men had very similar self-employment rates.

Over the same period (1991–2001), the number of female university graduates in the population increased by 70%; the number of male university graduates increased by 35%.

The data relates to the (working) population aged 15 years and older. In the empirical analysis, we restrict the sample to the working population between the ages of 22 and 64.

Unfortunately, due to data restrictions, we are not able to control for the presence of children in the household.

Here, the agricultural sector is understood to include fishing. It consists of the NACE (Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community) categories 1 through 5. Since the vast majority of unpaid family workers can be found in the agricultural sector, there are only 986 unpaid family workers left in our sample (corresponding to 0.27% of the total). Hence, our results are not sensitive to the inclusion of this group.

The classification of the regional districts is based on factors like capital intensity, population density, and sectoral employment concentration. For a detailed description of the methodology, see Palme (1995).

In 2006, 75% of Austrian children below the age of 15 were living in households with married couples; such households represented a share of 49% of all households.

The effect is calculated as CDF(0.062 * age + (−0.005) * age * age + constant). For women, the effect is: CDF(0.008 * age + (0.0001) * age * age + constant).

Not surprisingly, for both men and women the probability of SE is highest in business services, wholesale and retail trade and hotels and restaurants. We find that the probability is lowest in public administration, education, and manufacturing. Detailed results are available upon request.

We use the Stata program implemented by Jann (2006).

Younger women make education choices that by themselves should not lead to SE rates different from those of their male counterparts.

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Titel: Gender and field of study as determinants of self-employment
verfasst von: Thomas Leoni
Martin Falk
Publikationsdatum: 01.02.2010
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Small Business Economics / Ausgabe 2/2010
Print ISSN: 0921-898X
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0913
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-008-9114-1

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