Entrepreneurial spirits in women and men. The role of financial literacy and digital skills

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the attitudes to entrepreneurship of Italian households, focusing on the importance of financial literacy and digital skills as potentially relevant factors shaping entrepreneurship. We put the gender focus to our analysis to detect whether, and to what extent, women and men differ in their propensity to run a business. We carry out our research by using the Bank of Italy SHIW dataset for the years 2008 and 2010. Our findings suggest a strong heterogeneity between men and women in the role played by financial literacy and digital skills. Results show a positive and significant correlation between financial literacy and the probability of being an entrepreneur but only for men. We also find that digitally skilled male respondents are much more likely to be entrepreneurs.