Gender bond: an Innovative financial tool to reduce gender gap

Previous research has shown that women experience social, cultural, and economic discrimination, which has resulted in an entrepreneurial gender gap (Dal Mas & Paoloni, 2019). This gap is characterised by a low number of female-led enterprises and structural limitations that affect their access to credit, hence their competitiveness. The root cause of this gap is often attributed to an educational gap that impacts women’s entrepreneurial intentions and performance (Modaffari & Manzo, 2022; Paoloni, 2021). Although gender inequality is gradually decreasing, in many countries, even among the seemingly more developed ones, there are still many difficulties for women and, in general, there is a pervasive and stubborn mentality that pays little attention to the issue that does not allow SDG 5 to progress appreciably and, logically, to meet the deadlines dictated by the Plan in the scarce decade that remains. In finance, these issues are also beginning to be the subject of interest by investors, as it pays to finance actions to eliminate the gender gap or, at least, to manage it. The development of sustainable finance in recent years has opened up the use of capital to the explicit aim of reducing the gender gap. In this context, Gender Bonds (GB) seem to be the most viable solution to solve this issue and, at the same time, meet today’s sustainable development challenge.