New York SBDC Research Network

In 2014, employed people worked an average of 7.8 hours on the days they worked. More hours were worked, on average, on weekdays than on weekend days—8.1 hours compared with 5.7 hours. On the days they worked, employed men worked 52 minutes more than employed women. This difference partly reflects women's greater likelihood of working part time. However, even among full-time workers (those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked longer than women—8.4 hours compared with 7.8 hours. More from the Bureau of Labor Statistics .

This report examines the gender characteristics and business dynamics of establishments that were in operation as of 2002 for the 2002-2006 period. This paper is the first to report matching data from the 2002 Survey of Business Owners (SBO) and the 1989-2006 Business Information Tracking Series (BITS) in an Advocacy publication series. The series focuses on business dynamics by gender, race/ethnicity, and business type (publicly held vs. non-publicly held businesses). Business owners’ gender, race or ethnic characteristics can be identified only for non-publicly held enterprises. Employer establishments—establishments with paid employees—owned by women had higher closure rates and lower contraction rates than those owned by men or owned equally by men and women over the 2002-2006 period. The average four-year survival rate for all 2002 employer establishments was 70 percent; for female-owned, 66 percent; for male-owned, 72 percent; and for male and female equally owned, 69 percent. I

The SBA Office of Advocacy-funded paper "Are Male and Female Entrepreneurs Really That Different?," by Erin Kepler and Scott Shane, finds that gender does not affect new venture performance when other factors are controlled for. However, several factors--differing expectations, reasons for starting a business, motivations, opportunities sought and types of businesses--vary between the genders, and these result in differing outcomes. Such observations should be taken into account when comparing the outcomes of ventures across genders. The data used for the study was from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) focusing on businesses started in 1998 and 1999. A full copy of this report is available here and the research summary can be found here .