Female businesses between crisis and resilience: economic and generational opportunity

The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of access to state guaranteed credit by women’s businesses in the period 2000–2021 with particular focus on the period characterized by the pandemic. This document analyzes the literature on access to credit by women’s companies and uses data from the Central Guarantee Fund as a source, limiting itself to exposing the data in an aggregate manner. At the moment, limited access to information allows us to verify in absolute terms the differences between access to credit by companies led by women and the rest of the companies that have obtained financing from the financial system assisted by the SME Fund Guarantee. This study provides new information on the limited demands, by small- and medium-sized female businesses, in formal and state-backed credit markets.