Comparing the Performance of Male-and Female-Controlled Businesses: Relating Outputs to Inputs

Previous research has found that female-owned businesses generally underperform male-owned businesses on a variety of measures such as sales and profit. Further, this underperformance appears to persist even after controlling for demographic differences. However, previous studies have tended to limit their assessment of performance to output measures (sales or profit, for example) without relating these output measures to appropriate inputs (such as total assets or owner's equity). This would appear to be a significant oversight. After controlling for industry, age of business, and the number of days a business operated, this study finds no significant differences between male- and female-controlled businesses with respect to total income to total assets (TITTA), the return on assets (ROA), or the return on equity (ROE). Interestingly, if the control variables are removed, there is evidence to suggest that female-controlled businesses outperform male-controlled businesses.