Gender as a determinant of informal capital in the financing of small firms' start-ups: Swedish data

This research explores the differences in informal capital acquisition between female- and male-owned firms in the start-up stage in Sweden. A binary logistic regression model is used to analyse a sample including 836 female- and 1928 male-owned firms in 2008, providing 47,022 observations. The results indicate that the main explanatory variable, gender, is significant in distinguishing between female- and male-owned firms with regards to the use of informal capital in terms of loans from family members. Thus, female-owned firms tend to rely more on loans from family members than male-owned firms. The findings also indicate that one control variable, namely owners' previous experience of starting up a company, negatively influences the use of loans from family members as a financing source in the start-up stage. This study is based on a unique and large sample including many different variables compared with previous research. Knowledge on the differences between Swedish female- and male-owned firms in using informal capital in the start-up stage is limited and ambiguous. The presented results contribute to research into small firm financing by adding insight into the relationships between informal capital acquisition, gender, and other relevant variables.