Gender, Entrepreneurship and Coping with the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of GoFood Merchants in Indonesia

Yesim Elhan-Kayalar, Yasuyuki Sawada and Yana van der Meulen Rodgers
Additional contact information
Yesim Elhan-Kayalar: Asian Development Bank Institute
Yana van der Meulen Rodgers: Asian Development Bank Institute

No 1346, ADBI Working Papers from Asian Development Bank Institute

Abstract: We examine business performance and crisis mitigation strategies among micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic. We utilize a new primary data set based on administrative records, survey data, and follow-up interviews with merchants using the digital application GoFood, an on-demand cooked food delivery service. Three empirical findings emerge: First, the overall employment size of women-owned businesses shrank more than men-owned businesses after the pandemic outbreak; second, women were more likely than men to cut personal expenditures and use government assistance as crisis mitigation strategies; and third, competition increased sharply as new merchants entered the platform, with service areas of both incumbents and entrants shrinking over time. These results have implications for policies on women’s entrepreneurship, the uptake of business development services, and financing programs for MSMEs.

Keywords: women; e-commerce; COVID-19; digitalization; MSMEs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J21 L11 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-mfd, nep-pay, nep-sbm and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/844366/adbi-wp1346.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Gender, entrepreneurship, and coping with the COVID‐19 pandemic: The case of GoFood merchants in Indonesia (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:adbiwp:1346

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ADBI Working Papers from Asian Development Bank Institute Kasumigaseki Building 8F, 3-2-5, Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-6008, Japan. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ADB Institute ().