Gender discrimination and firm survival: a multilevel approach for EU textile companies

Recent economic literature highlighting the influence of gender discrimination on firm performance suggests that promoting gender diversity is key for boosting a company’s efficiency. This paper analyses the channels through which gender discrimination affects a specific performance indicator: the probability of a firm’s survival. The available evidence is controversial. We argue that a complex set of information at various levels (firm, sector, country, time, etc.) is required to correctly address these issues, i.e., that the data are likely to have a hierachical structure. Against this background, we generalize the standard business demography approach and propose the application of a non-linear, multilevel Cox model. For the empirical application, we focus on the survival probability of European firms in the textile and garment sector, which is characterized by a high percentage of women employees, a wide gender wage gap, and high discrimination. In line with standard business demography studies, we show that size and internationalization modes positively affect firms’ survival probability, while gender-related variables have a significant and negative impact.