The Shadow Pandemic: COVID-19 and Vertical Gender Bias Against Female-Led Crowdfunding Ventures

Abstract

We investigate the impact the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) on the accumulation of critical resources and status for female-led crowdfunding campaigns. Although past research suggests that crowdfunding presents a “safe haven” for female entrepreneurs—and thus reduce the impact of gender bias—our research goes beyond initial target-goal completion (i.e., horizontal success of goal completion) and explores the impact of gender bias on an important, yet underexamined, aspect of crowdfunding: vertical success bias (i.e., gendered-biased results pertaining to the accumulation of resources and status). Additionally, we examine how COVID-19 amplifies underlying societal norms and expectations impacting gender bias and the success of female-led crowdfunding campaigns. We test our hypotheses using data gathered from Kickstarter and examine the impact COVID-19 has on vertical success bias for female-led campaigns. Our results largely support the presence of vertical success bias both before and during COVID-19, while also demonstrating the pandemic’s amplifying effect. The present research provides novel insight into the complex nature of gender bias via crowdfunding and challenges previous findings regarding crowdfunding’s success for women. More importantly, this research demonstrates the impact a global pandemic, such as COVID-19, can have on gender bias and it’s shadow-effect for female crowdfunding success.