Gender Based Differences in Managerial Experience: The Case of Informal Firms in Rwanda

The paper contributes to the literature on gender-based disparity in human capital by extending existing results on educational attainment to the number of years of experience that female vs. male managers have among informal or unregistered firms. Using the case of Rwanda, results show that the number of years of experience for female managers is significantly lower, equaling 80-88 percent that of male managers. We also find that this gender disparity is higher among the relatively older managers and among firms in the relatively less developed city of Butare compared with the more developed city of Kigali.