Friendship at Work: Can Peer Effects Catalyze Female Entrepreneurship? / Erica Field, Seema Jayachandran, Rohini Pande, Natalia Rigol.

By:

Field, Erica

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w21093.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2015.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

O1 - Economic Development

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Abstract: Does the lack of peers contribute to the observed gender gap in entrepreneurial success, and is the constraint stronger for women facing more restrictive social norms? We offered two days of business counseling to a random sample of customers of India's largest women's bank. A random subsample was invited to attend with a friend. The intervention had a significant immediate impact on participants' business activity, but only if they were trained in the presence of a friend. Four months later, those trained with a friend were more likely to have taken out business loans, were less likely to be housewives, and reported increased business activity and higher household income. The positive impacts of training with a friend were stronger among women from religious or caste groups with social norms that restrict female mobility.

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Previous	nber w21090 An Empirical Examination of Patent Hold-up /	nber w21091 Robots: Curse or Blessing? A Basic Framework /	nber w21092 How Do Firms Form Their Expectations? New Survey Evidence /	nber w21093 Friendship at Work: Can Peer Effects Catalyze Female Entrepreneurship? /	nber w21094 Labor Market Slack and Monetary Policy /	nber w21095 Delay Functions as the Foundation of Time Preference: Testing for Separable Discounted Utility /	nber w21096 Ethnic Complementarities after the Opening of China: How Chinese Graduate Students Affected the Productivity of Their Advisors /	Next

April 2015.

Does the lack of peers contribute to the observed gender gap in entrepreneurial success, and is the constraint stronger for women facing more restrictive social norms? We offered two days of business counseling to a random sample of customers of India's largest women's bank. A random subsample was invited to attend with a friend. The intervention had a significant immediate impact on participants' business activity, but only if they were trained in the presence of a friend. Four months later, those trained with a friend were more likely to have taken out business loans, were less likely to be housewives, and reported increased business activity and higher household income. The positive impacts of training with a friend were stronger among women from religious or caste groups with social norms that restrict female mobility.