Does gender affect business profitability? The case in a region of Spain

Abstract

In the present paper we try to analyse whether gender affects business growth. Previous literature shows that there is no consensus about the influence of the presence of women in management positions on business performance. However, most papers have focused on large companies despite the presence of female managers is higher in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In this paper we choose a sample of SMEs from Asturias, which are the majority of the firms in this region of Spain. Our results suggest that the gender of the management affects assets growth. Nevertheless, our findings show that the gender of the management does not seem to exert a significant influence on economic and financial profitability growth. So women perform, at least, as well as men.