Revisiting Gender Gaps in Microenterprise Performance: Evidence from Firm-Level and Household-Level Outcomes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61194/ijjm.v7i4.2295Keywords:
gender gap in microenterprises, necessity-driven entrepreneurship, household welfare, human capital investment, household interference, emerging economiesAbstract
Micro and small enterprises (MSEs) play an important role in economic resilience in emerging economies, yet women-owned MSEs consistently report lower profits than male-owned firms. Most studies evaluate this gender gap using firm-level indicators, with limited attention to how enterprise outcomes relate to household welfare. This study examines whether female ownership is associated with both enterprise profit and household well-being by simultaneously estimating firm-level performance and household-level welfare outcomes within a single nationally representative Indonesian dataset. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS-5), four regression models are estimated for business profit, household per capita expenditure, education spending, and subjective well-being, applying Ordinary Least Squares with robust standard errors and M-estimator regressions to assess the stability of associations across specifications. The results indicate a significant gender gap in business profit; however, female ownership is positively associated with household consumption, education expenditure, and subjective well-being. These findings suggest that in necessity-driven contexts, women-owned MSEs may play a role in supporting household welfare despite lower firm-level returns, thereby providing a basis to reconsider profit-centered measures of entrepreneurial success and informing more gender-sensitive evaluation frameworks. The analysis identifies statistical associations rather than causal effects and does not fully address potential issues such as selection into female ownership, omitted variables, and the ordinal nature of subjective well-being.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Ramel Yanuarta RE, Yokazio Sharen, Nurfaizah
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
