Gendered lending: Gender, context and the rules of business lending

Abstract

Abstract Three existing areas of research activity are addressed: (1) the local gendering of entrepreneurship; (2) gendered relationship between institutions and resource mobilization in place; and (3) gendered spaces of engagement. Looking through the lens of geography, a case study involving interview data from loan officers in Worcester, Massachusetts in the US are used to examine how financial institutions and the perceptions of loan officers create differential access to financial resources for women entrepreneurs. The paper finds that loan officers localize the interconnections between lending rules and institutional structure to collectively inform a landscape of resource availability for women starting businesses. The paper confirms the notion that lending is gendered but the effects of this are spatially variable, which has implications for industry standard advice regarding the best lenders for business owners.