Over the Gender Gap: Female Entrepreneurs in Taiwan

跨越性別差距：台灣的女性企業家

胡均立(Jin-Li Hu) ； 蕭玟玲(Wen-Ling Hsiao) ； 黃彥妮(Yen-Ni Huang)

《創新與管理》 17卷1期 (2021/01) Pp. 1-40

摘要

Female-owned businesses already represent a powerful economic force worldwide despite the entry and growth constraints they face. This research investigates the gender gap of female entrepreneurs by analyzing the trend in the number of female-owned enterprises in Taiwan, utilizing official data of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan. We compare the number of male-owned businesses and female-owned businesses during 2007-2014 and use panel data regression to compare the performance of women- and men-owned firms. The empirical results reveal the following findings. First, the number of female-owned enterprises is significantly lower than the number of male-owned enterprises. Second, the higher the proportion is of total employment in manufacturing and service industries, the lower is the proportion of female enterprises. Third, when the labor participation rate in each administration is higher, the proportion of female-owned enterprises is lower. Fourth, a higher unemployment rate denotes a higher proportion of women's enterprises. These empirical findings indicate that gender gaps among entrepreneurs are still huge and resilient across many dimensions, including firm size, productivity, exports, financial capital, etc. Therefore, gender equality still needs to show advancement among SME owners in Taiwan.

關鍵字

Gender gap ； Women entrepreneurs ； Trend analysis ； Female-owned SMEs ； Female entrepreneurs

並列摘要

儘管女性企業家已經在全球經濟體代表了強大的經濟力量，但仍面臨進入和成長的限制。這項研究利用臺灣經濟部的官方數據，通過分析臺灣女性擁有企業的數量趨勢，調查了企業家的性別差距。我們比較2007～2014年間各縣市男性企業家與女性企業家的數量，並使用迴歸方法進行分析。為了檢驗台灣女性企業家是否存在天花板現象，本研究建構了兩個研究假說：假說一，教育水平有助於改善工作場所的性別平等，一個縣市裡較高的高等教育比例帶來較高的女企業家比例。假說二，女企業家面對的性別差異程度與產業別有關。一個地區服務業的比例越高，女性企業家的比例也愈高。本研究的迴歸估計結果支持這兩個研究假說，顯見企業家之間的性別差距仍然存在。此外，一個縣市的服務業的比例越高，女性企業家的比例就越高－這對女性而言，表明服務業提供了比製造業較佳的工作環境。

並列關鍵字

性別差距 ； 女性企業家 ； 趨勢分析 ； 女性擁有的中小企業