Power outages, firm performance and the gender-based productivity gap: empirical evidence from Senegal

Abstract This study addresses the empirical nexus between electricity unreliability, firm productivity and gender-based productivity for the case of Senegal. We analyse 437 small and medium enterprises from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys, using an instrumental variable (IV) framework to investigate the effect of power cuts on the gender-based productivity gap. We supplement the IV framework with descriptive tools, including Combes' quantile approach and the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition, to further explore the gender–productivity gap. We find a significant negative effect of power outages on firm performance. Findings further suggest a significant association between power outages and the gender-based productivity gap. Despite male- and female-owned enterprises being equally affected by power outages, their productivity reducing effect is more pronounced for women. For policy-making, this implies that reliable energy services should be provided with the objective of concomitantly reducing the gender-based productivity gap.