What Drives Self-Employment Survival for Women and Men? Evidence from Canada

This paper investigates the determinants of self-employment survival among women and men using the Canadian Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics. Survival is analyzed in the context of a single outcome (exiting self-employment) and in the context of multiple outcomes or competing risks (i.e. self-employment exit due to failure, versus non-failure exits). The largest detriment to survival for women is number of children. Whereas children improve survival rates for men. Non-participation in the labor force prior to starting a self-employment spell increases the probability of failure for women, but not men. Consistent with the liquidity constraint hypothesis, women who have personal wealth are less likely to exit self-employment. For women, this wealth effect does not depend on exit type. However, for men, the availability of personal wealth reduces the probability of exiting self-employment due to failure, but increases the probability of non-failure exits.