Business Licencing Reform and Gender Equality: Evidence from Indonesia

Amrita Saha, Kelbesa Megersa and Keir Macdonald

Journal of Development Studies, 2023, vol. 59, issue 8, 1283-1307

Abstract: Business environment reform targets inadequate business regulations, intending to remove constraints to business investment, enabling growth and job creation, and creating opportunities for international business to contribute to and benefit from this growth. Women-led businesses are likely to be disproportionately negatively affected by a poor business environment. However, there is a dearth of context-specific knowledge of the impact of business environment reform on gender equality. This paper offers new insights into this relationship through an in-depth analysis of the Pelayanan Terpadu Satu Pintu (PTSP) or one-stop shop business licencing reform in 2009, exploiting the variation in the extent of its implementation to examine how the effects vary, focussing on the gender of firm leadership. Our findings suggest that the reform is unlikely to have led to either unintended negative consequences for women-led firms, nor do we find any evidence of transformational change. Outside Jakarta, advances for women were achieved, while in Jakarta existing exclusions were maintained and arguably deepened. Stronger gender and inclusion outcomes would require further deepening and expanding the positive achievements identified, including general business environment improvements coupled with targeted support for sectors.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2023.2218003 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:taf:jdevst:v:59:y:2023:i:8:p:1283-1307

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FJDS20

DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2023.2218003

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Studies is currently edited by Howard White, Oliver Morrissey and Ken Shadlen

More articles in Journal of Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().