Experiences of women and minoritized US military veteran business owners: descriptive evidence on “vetrepreneur” survival and growth

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Publicly available datasets in the USA present data suppression issues that limit the ability to investigate entrepreneurial subgroups like military veterans, which account for about one in ten entrepreneurs in the USA. Thus, despite public desire to support veteran entrepreneurs (“vetrepreneurs”), there is a limited descriptive understanding on the relationship between veteran business owner demographics, such as gender and race, and their business survival and growth. We address this limited understanding in this article by providing descriptive evidence on veteran-owned business survival and growth, emphasizing variation across race and gender.

Design/methodology/approach

We use limited-access longitudinal microdata to provide descriptive evidence on the survival and growth of veteran-owned firms across race and gender.

Findings

Findings indicate statistically significant variation across demographic subgroups’ business survival and employment growth. For example, veteran-owned firms have high women ownership rates, greater employment, revenues and payrolls, but also lower employment and revenue growth. More generally we provide descriptive evidence that military experience or the military community help women overcome the gender gap in small business survival.

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS:

  • This study explores the survival and growth of veteran-owned businesses by gender and race/ethnicity using data collected from the Survey of Business Owners from 1997 to 2016 as well as data from the annual Longitudinal Business Database from 1976 to 2019.
  • Descriptive analyses reveal that of the approximately 27,000 businesses included in the data, nearly 23% are owned by Veteran-owned businesses are more likely to be owned by women (69%) compared to nonveteran-owned business (59%), but both veteran and nonveteran-owned businesses are equally as likely to be owned by a racial/ethnic minority.
  • The study concludes that compared to businesses owned by nonveterans, veteran-owned businesses have a greater likelihood of survival from year to year, higher annual revenues, similar rates of revenue growth, and lower employment growth. Evidence suggests that military service accrues benefits to women and racial/ethnic minority business owners.