published in: Small Business Economics, 2007, 28 (1), 1-21
In western industrialized countries men are on average more than twice as active in
entrepreneurship as women. Based on data from a recent representative survey of the adult
population in Germany this paper uses an empirical model for the decision to become selfemployed
to test for differences between women and men in the ceteris paribus impact of
several characteristics and attitudes, taking the rare events nature of becoming an
entrepreneur into account. Furthermore, a non-parametric approach using Mahalanobisdistance
matching of man and woman which are as similar as possible in all characteristics
and attitudes but the "small difference" is used to investigate the difference in the propensity
to become self-employed by gender. A core finding is that the difference between men and
women in both the extent and the effect of considering fear of failure to be a reason not to
start one's own business is important for the explanation of the gender gap in
entrepreneurship.
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