Gender and Sibling Dynamics in the Intergenerational Transmission of Entrepreneurship

Abstract

This project uses gender and sibling dynamics to explore the intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship. I find that the transmission of self-employment from fathers to daughters is significantly reduced when there are sons in the family. I interpret this as evidence that the intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship is driven at least in part by costly investments by parents, which can be crowded out by brothers. I investigate specific types of parental investments -- transfers of money, businesses, and human capital -- that potentially underlie this transmission and conclude that sons crowd out human capital acquisition by daughters. If all daughters of self-employed men experienced the sisters-only level of transmission, the overall gender gap in self-employment would be reduced by nearly 20 percent.