The low rates of female entrepreneurship have been well-documented around the world in recent years. A recent study from the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business at Waterloo highlights how female entrepreneurs still tend to benefit from partnering with experienced men rather than going it alone.

This finding came from an analysis of nearly 200,000 Canadian businesses from 2006 to 2017 to explore the impact of co-ownership between women and men. The study found that women-owned businesses often underperform businesses owned by men, regardless of whether looking at growth, profitability, number of employees, productivity, or survival rate.

Hurdles to overcome

This is often because of the significant barriers female entrepreneurs face, such as negative gender-role stereotypes and difficulties in gaining the kind of executive experience that can help when growing a startup.

Suffice it to say, the researchers are at pains to point out that they don’t believe women have to partner with men in order to launch a successful business, and they do highlight that the trend mainly applies to inexperienced female entrepreneurs. When experienced female entrepreneurs pair up with an experienced male entrepreneur, the benefits don’t materialize.

Such a partnership seems to help women to overcome the systemic barriers faced by their new business, and the researchers hope that their findings might help to direct resources in a more fruitful direction to ensure that female entrepreneurs gain a fairer shot at success.

“It’s one thing to encourage women to go into business,” the researchers explain. “But if it doesn’t turn out to be successful, it will not be a way for them to acquire experience and get better results quickly.”

The productivity gap created by gender barriers is also reduced when inexperienced women partner with experienced women entrepreneurs, but analysis showed the gains are substantially lower and less enduring than if they partner with experienced men entrepreneurs, who typically have a broader base of knowledge and stronger connections in men-dominated networks.