Gendered Social Norms and Microenterprise Efficiency: Evidence from Workspace Choice and Household Dynamics in Mexico
利用墨西哥全国代表性数据，研究发现女性拥有的微型企业效率较低，主要原因是性别社会规范导致女性更多在家经营，从而影响效率。
In recent decades, the Mexican microenterprise sector experienced declining productivity and increasing feminization. Using nationally representative data, this article estimates microenterprise efficiency and finds that owner gender significantly predicts efficiency. The study examines the gender efficiency gap using the Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to examine differences in endowments and returns to endowments. It includes traditional explanatory variables for firm performance, including owner education, age, motivation, and industry, while considering how gender norms may influence efficiency through marital status, responsibility for unpaid household work, and workspace. Findings show that differences in returns to endowments, rather than differences in endowments themselves, explain almost the entirety of the gender efficiency gap. Gendered social norms regarding women’s role in the household help explain why a much larger share of women-owned microenterprises operate from home, as it allows them to pursue paid work for their business and unpaid household work but adversely impacts their efficiency.HIGHLIGHTS In Mexico, women have increasingly come to own and work in microenterprises.Microenterprises allow women to simultaneously engage in paid work and unpaid household work.Women are more likely to lead their business from home, adversely impacting efficiency.Policies promoting microenterprise efficiency should account for women’s needs.