It's a man's world? The rise of female entrepreneurship during privatization in Serbia

Abstract

We focus on the rise of female entrepreneurship in Serbia and collect an extensive biographical dataset of women, who took part in privatization during 2002–2019. Although women enjoyed the same de jure rights as men, they faced a number of informal restrictions such as patriarchal values and tradition-related occupations in low-wage sectors. Nevertheless, using controls for firm and personal characteristics, we find that own entrepreneurial success of new female owners was decisive for firm survival and that female ownership during the privatization was not solely a facade for the activities of their powerful husbands or parents.