Female Entrepreneurs, Digital Tools, and Work-Life Balance : Evidence from Small Businesses around the World

We examine the use of digital technology by female and male entrepreneurs across world. We highlight that digital technology not only confers productivity benefits to the firm but also time-saving benefits to the entrepreneur, which may be particularly consequential for female founders who face higher levels of non-work related demands. However, commentators suggest that women may face higher costs of adopting and using digital tools. Thus, it is unclear to what extent female entrepreneurs use digital tools in their businesses. Using a cross-section of 23,033 small businesses across 42 countries, we show that the digital gender gap is not uniform across digital tools; female entrepreneurs use digital tools that support interactions with external stakeholders (i.e., advertising) to the same extent as male entrepreneurs but are significantly less likely to use digital tools for internal firm management (e.g., finance). However, women who face higher levels of non-work demands, measured by those who start their firms to balance work-life objectives, have a higher intensity of external digital tool use than their male counterparts. We find this relationship is primarily driven by women who start firms in countries where there is less institutional support for work-life conflicts. We find similar, albeit weaker, patterns for the use of internal digital tools. Our findings highlight the role of digital technology in alleviating time constraints for female entrepreneurs and suggest that reducing the cost of accessing and using digital technologies may help to democratize female participation in entrepreneurship