Persistent gender attitudes and women entrepreneurship

Abstract: How do persistent gender norms affect women's current startup activity? We investigate whether historical gender norms - measured by Switzerland's 1981 public referendum on enshrining gender equality as a constitutional right - influence female startup activity today. Using data from all 2,308 Swiss municipalities from 2016 to 2023, we show that gender norms have persisted over the past 42 years. Municipalities with a higher share of votes in favor of gender equality have a statistically and economically significantly higher ratio of women-founded to men-founded startups. The average elasticity of this ratio with respect to the 1981 vote is 0.2. These findings indicate that gender norms have persisted in Switzerland, despite mass immigration and the unprecedented economic growth the country has experienced over the past four decades. This result remains robust even after controlling for a later referendum on gender roles and a wide range of municipality-specific control variables, and the effect is stronger for non-growth-oriented firms than for growth-oriented startups.