|**Table 6c**|**- Business deve**|**lopment ma**|**rgins**|**Table 6**|**d - Financialpl**|**anning **|**margins**||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Margin**<br>**Std.**|**Err.**<br>**[95%**|**Conf.**<br>**Interval]**||**Margin**<br>**Std.**|**Err.**<br>**[**|**95% Conf.**<br>|**Interval]**|
|**Female owner#Loan**<br>**documents**||||**Female owner#Loan**<br>**documents**|||||
|0 0|5.59|0.24|5.05<br>6.12|0 0|1.75|0.21|1.29|2.2|
|0 1|8.16|0.27|7.58<br>8.74|0 1|4|0.15|3.66|4.33|
|1 0|5.81|0.41|4.91<br>6.71|1 0|1.9|0.19|1.48|2.33|
|1 1|8.08|0.26|7.5<br>8.65|1 1|4.12|0.16|3.76|4.48|
|**Feamle owner#Medium**||||**Feamle owner#Medium**|||||
|**firm**||||**firm**|||||
|0 0|6.99|0.2|6.55<br>7.42|0 0|3.14|0.15|2.81|3.46|
|0 1|8.26|0.39|7.4<br>9.13|0 1|3.32|0.35|2.55|4.1|
|1 0|7.06|0.28|6.45<br>7.67|1 0|3.25|0.19|2.83|3.67|
|1 1|8.1|0.29|7.46<br>8.73|1 1|3.56|0.19|3.14|3.98|
|**Female owner#Permit**||||**Female owner#Permit**|||||
|0 0|4.65|1.17|2.08<br>7.21|0 0|1.18|0.38|0.35|2.01|
|0 1|7.38|0.17|7<br>7.76|0 1|3.3|0.14|2.98|3.62|
|1 0|6.91|0.39|6.04<br>7.77|1 0|3.57|0.39|2.71|4.43|
|1 1|7.27|0.24|6.73<br>7.8|1 1|3.29|0.14|2.99|3.59|
|**Female owner#Trade**||||**Female owner#Trade**|||||
|0 0|6.94|0.3|6.28<br>7.6|0 0|3.09|0.17|2.72|3.47|
|0 1|7.95|0.7|6.41<br>9.48|0 1|3.38|0.43|2.44|4.32|
|1 0|7.01|0.24|6.48<br>7.55|1 0|3.21|0.17|2.84|3.58|
|1 1|7.87|0.29|7.22<br>8.51|1 1|3.57|0.25|3.03|4.11|

# Outcome: Barriers to Growth

We study the most significant barriers to business growth: family responsibilities, gender, and conflict, to understand which firm and employee characteristics play a role in reporting these as barriers. In these specifications, the interpretation of the coefficient is the increase or decrease in the likelihood that the observation falls into a higher or lower category. In Table 7b, conflict is considered as a barrier to growth and the model includes interaction terms for gender and conflict to understand whether the effect of operating in a conflict area differs depending on the gender of the business owner. Table 7c presents the results for the predicted values of this interaction.

**Women owned firms are significantly less likely to report conflict as being a significant barrier to growth.** A femaleowned firm is 41 percent less likely to perceive conflict as an important barrier to growth. There are several potential narratives to help explain this phenomenon, including the possibility that female-owned businesses may not be perceived as a threat during conflict and consequently suffer less disruption, or otherwise the perception that female-owned businesses are less likely to be in insecure areas or in a position to make payments to conflict actors or suffer payment insecurity.

**Firms with loan documents are almost 30 percent more likely to perceive conflict as a greater barrier.** This could be the result of more stable firms being capital intensive and having characteristics that could cause a larger loss in case of conflict. The larger the share of highly educated employees, the more conflict is perceived as a barrier (although with a minor impact of 3 percent) potentially because firms with more educated employees could be more complex and developed and have more to lose in case of conflict. Finally, firms operating in a conflict zone increases the perception of conflict as a barrier by 87 percent.

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