The reason female entrepreneurs get less funding isn't that banks are sexist; it’s that women are choosing not to apply for the loans in the first place.
April 10, 2026
Original Paper
Women-Led Firms' Access to Bank Credit
SSRN · 6536158
The Takeaway
While many assume banks discriminate against women during the approval process, data from France shows rejection rates are nearly identical between sexes. The real disparity comes from a massive gap in application rates, suggesting the problem is rooted in barriers that occur before anyone ever enters the bank.
From the abstract
This paper documents the existence and evolution of a gender gap in bank financing among non-financial firms, disentangling demand-and supply-side effects. Using quarterly panel data for French firms from 2012 to 2023, we find that this gap is driven by the demand side: women-led firms are between 12% and 26% less likely to apply for bank credit, depending on the type of loan. However, conditional on applying, the probability of rejection for women-led firms does not differ significantly from th