# I. Introduction ender disparity is regarded as one of the pervasive phenomena all over the world in recent decades. Women lag behind men in almost all aspects of human society more especially in the developing world. Women constitute half of the world population, and sustainable development is not possible to achieve keeping this share of the population out of the mainstream economic activities. Female entrepreneurship and participation in the economic activities are not only significant force for the world economy but also crucial for achieving other goals of SDGs such as poverty alleviation, food security, wellbeing and health; quality education; and gender equality. Klasen (2002) argued that the consequences of gender inequality could be low wel-lbeing of the female as well as lower economic growth and development. In the business area, gender disparity exists from ownership to participation to the top management level and worker level. However, in most of the developed and developing countries differences between male and female still exist pervasively in business entrepreneurship and labor market participation in both top and lower level. This significant gender difference is the result of the challenges faced by women. Access to finance; competition and innovation are the critical challenges for female in business and labor market (Caleb Kwong, Jones-Evans, & Thompson, 2012). Women get less financial facilities from the financial institutions than their male counterparts (Kon & Storey, 2003) which may affect female business ownership and participation in the top and low level in the labor market. The challenges of female entrepreneurs and managers are intensified through credit contrasts due to underperformance, lack of innovative capabilities and competitiveness. Financial institutions are reluctant to finance female-owned business due to the underperformance of these ventures which consequently affect the firm's potential profitability and performance. Competition is another crucial factor responsible for gender difference in entrepreneurship and labor market. Women are perceived to be less risktaking, assertive and ambitious than their counterparts (Booth & Nolen, 2012;Croson & Gneezy, 2009;Eckel & Grossman, 2008)which consequently lower the performance of the female-owned business as well as female participation in the top and low level. Innovative capabilities which are considered as the heart of an organization is another crucial factor that affects gender differences in entrepreneurship and workforce. In case of innovative capabilities female lag behind the male. Mueller and Van Deusen (2002) recognizedmen as innovators and women as adopters whereas Whittington and Smith-Doerr (2005) argued that men are more intended to create something new than their female counterparts. Moreover, men are preserved to be more assertive, risk-taking, and ambitions than the female counterparts Williams and Best (1990). Due to the lack of innovative capabilities female-owned and female-led business usually face greater challenge for pursuing innovation which also consequently causes underperformance and under the competitiveness of these ventures. Moreover, female-owned ventures face assumedly more challenges in promoting new products as well as expanding to new markets that may result in the lower competitiveness of the firms. However, the significant research question that is not addressed by the previous studies is whether these factors such as access to finance, competition, and innovation have significantadverse effect on female entrepreneurship and participation in top management and low level. Most of the studies in finance-gender linkage focused on gender differences in access to finance. Although female entrepreneurs face several demand-side and supply-side barriers to access to finances, it is also argued that women mainly finance their ventures from personal savings, credit cards and borrows from family and friends rather than taking loans from banks or commercial credits (Bygrave, Hay, Ng, & Reynolds, 2003).Moreover, the financial constraints faced by the female also differs across countries and societies. In the case of gender-competition and genderinnovation linkage, the studies focused on gender differences in competition and innovation. Although female lags behind in performing in the competitive environment and pursuing innovation in the firms the research question is whether these factors significantly affect female entrepreneurs, managers, and workers in business and labor market, although gender differences exist in competition and innovation, business competitiveness and innovative environment may vary across countries or regions which may have differential effect on female business and labor market. Gneezy, Leonard, and List (2009) found that avoidance of competition of female is higher in the patriarchal society than the matrilineal society. A number of research studies showed gender differences as significant catalyst in creating innovation as man produce a higher degree of patent compared to women (Agnete Alsos, Ljunggren, & Hytti, 2013). Marvel and Lee (2011) identified that educational background inflation network and regional location affect gender differences in innovation. However, whether innovation capabilities act as significant hindrance to female entrepreneurship and participation labor is still a crucial research gap. Women constitute nearly half of the population of Bangladesh, and no sustainable development is possible without the active participation of women in mainstream economic activities. Although women entrepreneurs contribute significantly to sustainable economic development, their contribution and participation in Bangladesh are still insignificant (Chowdhury, Yeasmin, & Ahmed, 2018). In the case of female participation in top and low-levelemployment, the situation is also alarming. In Bangladesh, women hold position in the business, own companies, and global corporations but the ratio is too small due to several barriers in every sector (Shetu & Ferdous, 2017). Bangladesh is a developing country with a significant share of unskilled and semi-skilled labor and women constitute the majority of this labor. That is why they are employed in the labor-intensive sectors such as readymade garments in Bangladesh and paid low wage. Among the barriers to women entrepreneurship and employment, financial constraints, competition and innovation or lack of technical knowledge are considered as significant factors contributing to small number of female entrepreneur and employment in Bangladesh. Considering the issues discussed so far, this study identifies the effects of firm's access to finance, innovation, and competition on the ownership and employment (top and low level) of the female based on firm-level data. This paper substantially makes several contributions to the empirical research of gender inequality in ownership and employment. First, the paper addresses the issue of gender inequality in three different of business such as ownership, top management, and owner level thus covers diverse areas of gender-related issues in business ownership and employment. Second, the study uses firm-level stratified survey data of WBES which provides more and robust insight into the gender issues in the firm's level. To measure female ownership in the firm level we focus on the question "Among the owners of the firms, are there any females?" and to measure female participation in top management we take into account to the response of the question "Is the top manager female?" The lower level participation of female is measured by the share of female worker in the firm. Third, the study focuses on three significant factors that may affect female ownership and employment at firm-level such as finance, competition, and innovation. Moreover, the study also identifies how different factors of finance, competition and innovation affect female ownership and participation. Four, we identified the effects separately for manufacturing and service sector to look into whether financial constraints, competition, and innovation have differential effect on female in manufacturing and service sectors. We focus on single country perspective because gender issues significantly vary across countries depending on the cultural and economic heritage Alesina, Giuliano, and Nunn (2013). We focus on Bangladesh for several reasons. This country lies at an essential stage for economic transition and gets status from low income to developing country very soon. This country substantially improves in women empowerment and participation in the workforce. The manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh are very dynamic, and it experiences a substantial and robust growth since the 1990s importantly driven by the readymade garments sector. On the other hand, the service sector of Bangladesh is still lag behind. Thus identifying the effects of finance constraints, competition, and innovation on female ownership and employment can provide significant policy suggestions. The remainder of the study is arranged as follows. The next section discusses the literature in the related field. Section three describes the variables and research method of the study. The results and discussion of the analysis are provided in section four. The last section makes conclusions and provides policy implications. # II. Literature Review and Hypothesis Development However, some studies also support neutrality or female favpurism in access to credit. In a recent study Moro, Wisniewski, and Mantovani (2017) found no biasedness of financial institutions against female managers, and they argued that female-managed firms obtain less financing due to the low application as they anticipate being rejected. Wellalage and Locke (2017) found less credit constraints faced by female compared to their male counterparts. Aristei and Gallo (2016) support gender-based discrimination regarding access to finance as credit denial probability between male and female cannot be explained by firms specific characteristics. In this study, we observe access to finance and gender issue through a different lens. We identified whether access to finance constraints affect femaleowned business negatively. The research question here is as follows: Research Question (RQ) 1a: Financial constraints in different aspects reduce the probability of female-owned business. Finance constraints also affect female participation in the top management. Top managers are responsible for grasping the profitable opportunities for firm's growth whish require challenging and creative thinking of the top management through utilizing the resources of the firm efficiently. Beckmann and Menkhoff (2008) found that female managers are more averse to competition and they act as market followers in selecting strategy rather than outperforming in the market. Niessen and Ruenzi (2006)support this view by identifying that female fundraisers perform neither very good nor very bad. This risk aversion and low confidence of the female in utilizing the firm's funds affect their access to finance. Our contribution to this strand of literature is that we uncover the research issue that whether firm's access to finance is negatively associated with the female top managers. RQ 1b: Access to finance is negatively associated with female participation in top management. It means that higher access to finance reduces the probability of female top managers. Firm's financial constraints also affect female share of worker in the firm. In the developing countries, a large portion of female workers are semi-skilled and unskilled who are paid low wage. The firms facing higher credit constraints will employ more female workers due to low wage paid to female. RQ 1c: Credit constrains of the firms increases the female share of workers. Competition is one of the crucial challenges women face in starting new business as well as representing in the top and lower level in the organization. According to Borghans, Heckman, Golsteyn, and Meijers (2009) women are more risk averse than men. Moen are willing to compete while women try to avoid competitionNiederle and Vesterlund (2011) suggest three different reasons for gender differences in competition such as women cannot or do not like to compete; they compete but not against men; and the differences in competition occurs not due to lower performance of women but higher performance of men in the competitive environment. Mobius, Niederle, Niehaus, and Rosenblat (2011) argued that men and women have difference in their beliefs as well as Access to finance is regarded as one of the major challenges for starting up of a business by the female (Klapper & Parker, 2010). Several studies identified several specific factors of low access to finance for women such as (SL Carter & Shaw, 2006)identified three key factors for gender diffrences in finance such as structural difference of business; discrimination from supply-side; and debt aversion attitude of the female. Women are more likely to start business in small and less profitable projects ( (Blake, 2006); and competitive force in the market (Cavalluzzo, Cavalluzzo, & Wolken, 2002). Finally risk aversion characteristics of the female affets their access to credit as they are considered more risk avrese that make them less ikely to access to finance (Caleb Kwong et al., 2012). updating their beliefs upon receiving information. Women update their beliefs less than men do upon receiving information. Competitive entrepreneurs invest more in their business and have more employees which improves the profitability and potentiality of the business. Amore and Garofalo (2016) identified that female significantly show high performance in low competition whereas they tend to underperform as the competition increases. The literature focusing competitionentrepreneurship linkage is very scarce. The contribution of this study is that it identifies whether competition is negatively linked with female entrepreneurship. # RQ 2a: High competition in the market reduces the possibility of female ownership in the business. Gender difference in representation in the top managerial positions is also substantial. Niederle and Vesterlund (2007) women do not prefer competitive high profile or technical jobs because of high responsibility associated with these managerial positions and long working hours required for these jobs. He further argued that women remain absent in some professional positions and higher rank positions as they have lower abilities. Moreover, in the competitive environment men and women respond differently and women exhibit more risk aversion than men. Competition improves the performance of men but does not female performance. From the firm's perspective, it would be costly if the high level personnel cannot adjust to competition in the market. Several studies (Faccio, Competition may affect the female workers different ways as it affects female top managers. As female underperform in the competitive environment compared to men high competition in the market may reduce the female share of workers in the organization. However, the critical issue is that whether firms compete for low cost or high differentiation and innovation. If competition is based on low cost high competition will result in higher female share of worker in the developing economies as female are paid low wage in these economies due to their low bargain power (Rahman, 2014). If competition is based on differentiation or innovation share of female worker will fall with growing competition as female are less innovative than men. Innovation appears to be critical factor for firm's competitiveness and growth (Malerba, 2002). Shane and Venkataraman (2000) argued that entrepreneurial process require some level of innovation as it is considered as the heart of entrepreneurship. According to (Lee, Paik, & Uygur, 2016) innovative capabilities is a generalized issue and can be differentiated by gender andMinniti and Naudé (2010) argued that entrepreneurial phenomenon is also gendered. Thus entrepreneurship and innovation are closely related. Kirton (1976) argued that women are adapters whereas men are innovators. Female-owned firms face greater challenges in pursuing innovation (Estrin & Mickiewicz, 2011; Kelley, Brush, Green, & Litovski, 2011) as men are perceived to be assertive, ambitious, and risk-takers. Moreover, female-owned businesses also face higher challenges in introducing or pushing a new product in a new market that sign for low marketing capabilities of female (Sara Carter et al., 2007;Orser, Riding, & Manley, 2006). However, studies overlooked the effects of innovation on female entrepreneurship. In this study we identified that whether innovation in different aspects significantly reduces female owned business. RQ3a: Innovation is negatively associated with female ownership at the firm level. Innovative capabilities also affect gender differences in labor market. As women are more risk averse and thus less innovative, higher innovative environment more suited for men than women. (Niederle & Vesterlund, 2007) identified that women have lower abilities for technical and competitive jobs. Several studies (Bagshaw, 2004 # III. Methodology a) Data The data for this study has been collected from World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) 2013 for Bangladesh. The enterprise survey collected data for around 1180 firms, and they represent the randomly sampled of the registered firms of both manufacturing and service sectors including their subgroups. The survey was designed using uniform questionnaire, and the firms were selected following stratified sampling method. The survey data covers almost all aspects of business in a country such as informality, corruption, financing, technology & innovation, gender, crime, firm characteristics, infrastructure, performance, regulation and workforce focusing on the firm level. The survey includes 1442 firms out of which 1180 are manufacturing, and the rest 262 are from service sectors. The survey also stratified the manufacturing and service sectors in different size and sub-sectors. The sample was stratified in three levels such as region, industry, and size of the firms. # b) Dependent Variables Realizing the significance of gender issue in the business this study aims at identifying the effects of finance constraints, competition, and innovation on female ownership and employment. Based on WBES data, we used three different measures to focus on gender issues at the firm level. The first measure focuses on the ownership issue of gender and is based on the response to the question "Among the owners of the firm, are there any female?" The variables take value of 1 if there is any female owner in the firm and 0 otherwise. The second measure deals with the gender of the top managers in the firm based on the response to the question "Is the top manager female?" The firm with female top manager takes value of 1 and 0 otherwise. The third measure focuses on female employment in the firm by calculating the share of female workers in the firm which is a quantitative measure. The share is calculated by taking the ratio of the total number of female permanent worker and total full-time permanent worker of the firm. However for service sector the data on the number of female permanent worker is not available. So, we cannot calculate the share of female worker for service sector. # c) Independent Variables We use three sets of variables as the leading independent variables such as access to finance, competition, and innovation. As proxy to firm's access to finance, we use credit purchase, working capital borrowing from banks, overdraft facility, line of credit from financial institutions and external audit of the statements. To represent competition in the market, we take informal competition; technology license; and export orientation of the firms. As proxy to innovation, the study considers product innovation (service innovation for service sector); process innovation or offering innovation for service sector; logistics innovation; management innovation; marketing innovation; idea generation; and R &D of the firm. 1 # d) Other Control variables We use several firms' specific characteristics as the control variables based on WBES data. They are 1 The detail description of the variables is provided in Appendix 1 firm's size; location (business city/capital city/special economic zone); legal status; age; quality certificate; registration; sector dummy for subsectors to strengthen the linkage between the dependent and independent variables. 1 We also divided the firms into two broad sectors such as manufacturing and service to identify the differential linkage between dependent and independent variables for different sectors. However, the survey collected data on 1180 manufacturing and 262 service firms for 2013 in Bangladesh. # e) Methods As the first two proxies of gender issue are represented by binary outcome which takes value of 1 for the firms with female owner (or female top manager) or value of 0 otherwise a qualitative response model is appropriate. In this study, we applied the probit model which can be derived as follows: y*=? 0 + x?? + e i ?????????????......(1) Where y is an unobserved latent binary variable which can be observed ??????...... ??????...... (2) e i is assumed to be distributed normally with a mean of zero. As provided by the above equations we have p(y=1)= p(x?? + a>0) =p(-u