Survival and Performance of Start-ups by Gender of Ownership: A Canadian Cohort Analysis

This paper provides an overview of women-owned start-ups in Canada. The recently developed data on the gender of business owners, as well as longitudinal data on firm entry by cohort for Canadian private corporations, make it possible—for the first time—to examine the entry and performance of women-owned start-ups from 2005 to 2013. In this paper, the annual number, size and industry concentration of new majority women-owned firms are examined and compared with majority men-owned and equally owned entrants. Subsequently, the survival rate and performance of surviving new private corporations by gender are examined.