Gender, Structural Factors, and Credit Terms between Canadian Small Businesses and Financial Institutions

This paper reports on an analysis of whether or not the terms of bank credit differ between men and women business owners. Based on a large sample of borrowing experiences, it is found that men and women business owners differ in systemic ways, but that when such differences are taken into account, no differences in the terms of credit persist. In spite of this conclusion, it is found that women small business owners feel themselves to have been treated disrespectfully by lending officers to a significantly greater extent than do male business owners. These findings provide a reconciliation of previous research findings, findings that report both equity of treatment of both genders by financial institutions yet a widespread sense of injustice on the part of women business owners. Implications for the training of loan account managers are developed.