Gender Differences in Enterprise Export Performance: Some International Evidence

ABSTRACT This study examines how ownership gender shapes firm‐level export performance using data from 24,455 firms across 108 countries. We find that the share of women's ownership is inversely associated with export performance and that firms with majority female ownership export significantly less than their majority male‐owned counterparts. These findings remain robust after addressing potential concerns related to omitted‐variable bias, measurement error and endogeneity, and they also pass falsification tests. Using the Oaxaca–Blinder threefold decomposition, we demonstrate that gendered differences in endowments are the primary drivers of the export underperformance gap. In low‐income countries, however, the disparity is driven predominantly by differences in returns to endowments. We also document substantial heterogeneity: the gendered export gap is more pronounced in common law countries, low‐income economies, African countries and countries where Islam is the dominant religion. Our findings imply that policies aimed at reducing gender gaps in exporting should prioritise improving women's access to export‐enhancing resources while also addressing context‐specific barriers that limit their effectiveness, especially in low‐income environments.