Gender Gaps in Entrepreneurship: Business Networks and Collaborations in Ghana

This study examines the characteristics of business networks and how they contribute to gender disparities in entrepreneurship. We conduct a survey on a sample of 1,487 young, highly educated male and female agribusiness owners in Ghana. We document that female entrepreneurs have smaller networks than male entrepreneurs, partly explained by differences in education and women's higher likelihood of operating their businesses from home. Furthermore, women's networks have a greater share of women and are slightly more informal, consisting of friends and relatives. Finally, we show that these gender differences in networks are key in explaining the gender gap in profits.