Running in the Family Parental Role Models in Entrepreneurship Hoffmann Small Business Economics...

8/12/2019 Running in the Family Parental Role Models in Entrepreneurship Hoffmann Small Business Economics 2014

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The observation hypothesis: Because children

closely observe the outcomes of their parents

choices, these outcomes will affect the childrens

choices. As a consequence, if children observe

their parents as self-employed, there is a higher

chance that they will choose to become self-

employed themselves.

While observation of the parents behaviour is of

central importance according to social-learning the-

ory, this influence of the parents behaviour is not

constant. It can vary with the extent to which children

interact or identify with their parents. Hence, it is

argued that children imitate same-sex models more

than opposite-sex models, because they recognize that

they share a larger set of common attributes with the

parent of the same sex (Hetherington 1965). Further-

more, children often spend more time in activitiessimilar to those of the role model of the same sex

(Slaby and Frey1975), and children might also learn

faster from parents of the same sex (Bonke and

Esping-Andersen2009). This leads us to formulate the

following two refinements of the observation

hypothesis:

The interaction hypothesis:The more the parents

interact with their children, the more the children

observe of (and learn from) the parents behaviour.

Thus, there is a stronger role-model effect of

observing parents as self-employed when the childis living and/or working with his or her parents.

The same-sex hypothesis:Boys identify with and

spend more time with their fathers, and girls

identify with and spend more time with their

mothers. Therefore, the father will be the most

important role model for boys, while the mother

will be most important for girls.

An empirical implication of the observation hypoth-

esis is that the parents experience from self-employ-

ment should positively affect the probability that thechild eventually becomes self-employed him- or

herself, and we should expect this probability to

increase with the amount of experience the parents

have from self-employment. Furthermore, the inter-

action hypothesis implies that the importance of the

parents self-employment experience should be

greater if it was obtained while the child was still

living at home or if the child has worked with the

parents while they were self-employed. Finally, an

empirical implication of the same-sex hypothesis is

that the experience of the father should have a larger

effect on sons, while the experience of the mother

should have a larger effect on daughters.

We test these empirical implications in the

following sections. However, some of these impli-

cations are not specific to the preference channel,but can also be expected under the two other

transmission channels. First, the financial channel

may also be consistent with an observed positive

effect of the parents self-employment experience

(the observation hypothesis)and in particular a

successful experience. Hence, a positive effect of

parental self-employment experience cannot imme-

diately be ascribed to the preference channel. In

order to eliminate the potential effects working

through the financial channel, we can control for

the wealth of the parents. Furthermore, we candisregard individuals who take over the family

business. In the empirical analysis below, we do

both.

Second, the human-capital channel obviously also

predicts a positive effect of having worked for the

parents while they were self-employed. Furthermore,

this is in turn likely to be correlated with the parents

experience from self-employment. Hence, it may be

difficult to disentangle the effects running through the

human-capital and preference channels. However, if

an effect of parental experience remains after control-ling for work experience in the family firm, this is a

strong indication of an effect working through the

preference channel. This is the approach that we

follow below.

Third, if parents make gender-specific investments

in their childrens human capital, in the sense that boys

tend to work in their fathers firms, while girls work in

their mothers firms, this may give rise to observed

gender-specific effects as predicted by the same-sex

hypothesis above but driven by the human-capital

channel; see also Lindquist et al. (2013). We try toeliminate this effect by controlling for the amount of

experience the children have from working with each

parent.

Finally, as we do not expect genetic factors to run

within gender lines, finding support for the same-sex

hypothesis would be a strong indication that the

preference channel (also) works through role models,

and it would furthermore point to a very specific way

A. Hoffmann et al.

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in which the preferences are passed on to the offspring.2

In the existing literature, there are different bits of

evidence that point to a positive effect of parental role

models. Van Auken et al. (2006) study 318 American

and Mexican undergraduate students preferences for

self-employment. Using a questionnaire to ask directlyabout the importance of role models, they find that the

father is the most important role model in general and

that role models who own a business have a greater

influence on the respondents career intentions than

role models who do not own a business. Scherer et al.

(1989) and Matthews and Moser (1996) also use a

questionnaire approach and find that university stu-

dents with self-employed parents have stronger pref-

erences for becoming self-employed. While these

studies point to an effect of parental role models on

entrepreneurship intentions, they do not find theeffects (qualitatively or quantitatively) on actual

outcomes nor do they show how the preferences are

transmitted.

In a recent study of 292 Dutch entrepreneurs,

Bosma et al. (2012) find support for the importance of

role models more generally (not just parental role

models); 54 % of the entrepreneurs had role models

before or shortly after firm start-up, and these were

viewed by one-third to be important for the start-up

decision.

Srensen (2007) finds that self-employment ratesamong children whose parents were only self-

employed during the childs adolescence are almost

as high as those where the parents were self-employed

both in adolescence and adulthood. He takes this as

evidence of the importance of role models, rather than

children taking advantage of parents financial and

social capital. Chlosta et al. (2012) study 461 alumni

from German universities and find that both a self-

employed father and a self-employed mother affect thepropensity to become self-employed. They interpret

this as a parental role-model effect, but they do not

control for influences through the other potential

transmission mechanisms.

The only existing papers to distinguish between

different effects on sons and daughters of self-

employed parents are Tervo and Haapanen (2009),

Andersson and Hammarstedt (2011) and Lindquist

et al. (2013). Tervo and Haapanen (2009) analyse

gender differences in self-employment in Finnish

regions. In doing this, they estimate separate equationsfor men and women and hence indirectly find evidence

for the same-sex hypothesis, as the coefficient of a

dummy for self-employment experience of the father

(mother) is largest for men (women). But as for

Chlosta et al. (2012), they do not control for the

influence through the other channels. Dunn and Holtz-

Eakin (2000) also report (but do not show) results for

women that point in the same direction.

Andersson and Hammarstedt (2011) study the

intergenerational transmission of self-employment

abilities among Swedish immigrants. As in Tervoand Haapanen (2009), separate regressions for men

and women are conducted, and they also find similar

results, but again, they do not control for the potential

effects working through the other channels.

Finally, Lindquist et al.s (2013) study is the most

closely related study to ours. Using data on both the

biological and adoptive parents of adopted children,

they are able to show that most of the intergenerational

transmission mechanism is due to post-birth factors.

They explore the reasons for this and find a stronger

same-sex transmission mechanism, which they inter-pret as evidence of a role-model effect. They go

further than the other studies in controlling for the

effects working through the other channels by, e.g.

including a measure for parental income and a proxy

for their wealth (the financial channel). They also try

to test for the importance of the human-capital channel

by analyzing whether a larger number of siblings (and

thus less parental time for each child) reduce the

intergenerational transmission effect.

2Whether preferences for entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial

human capital are transmitted from parents to children via

observing and interacting with the parents can be difficult to

discern. However, in the current literature, the human-capital

channel refers to the specific skills that are acquired by working/

participating in the activities of the parents firm, whereas the

values, ideas, tricks, etc.,communicated through daily interac-

tion belong to the preference channel and is interpreted as a role-model effect. If we instead choose to define human capital more

broadly as all accumulated experience since birth, the human-

capital channel should also include social-learning effects.

Under this interpretation of the human-capital channel, the

hypotheses above cannot discriminate between the human-

capital and the preference channel, but the hypotheses then point

to a neglected aspect of the standard human-capital model,

namely gender-specific effects in the intergenerational transfer

of human capital. Furthermore, if children work for their parents

without being formally employed by these,we will not be able to

distinguish the effects of this from the effects working through

the preference channel.

Parental role models in entrepreneurship

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repeatedly. However, to check the robustness of our

results, we include estimations where we use these

alternative dependent variables.

To test the observation hypothesis from the previ-

ous section, we include as explanatory variables

different measures of parental experience from self-

employment; separately for the mother and the father.The simplest measures are just two dummies, Father

self-employed and Mother self-employed, capturing

whether the father and the mother, respectively, were

self-employed between 1980 and year t. However, we

also use four dummies for each parent to measure the

intensity of the self-employment experience, where

the intensity is measured as the percentage of the

annual observations between 1980 and year tin which

the parent in question was self-employed.

To test the interaction hypothesis, we construct

dummy variables capturing whether the parents wereself-employed while the individual was still living at

home. These dummies are named Father self-

employed while child living at home and Mother

self-employed while child living at home. We also

construct variables measuring the number of years the

child has worked for the mother (Years employed with

mother) and father (Years employed with father),

respectively. However, while positive effects of these

variables are expected according to the interaction

hypothesis, they will (as explained above) also directly

reflect effects working through the human-capitalchannel. Hence, we include them primarily to control

for these latter effects.

Finally, to test the same-sex hypothesis, we include

interaction terms between the above variables and the

gender of the individual, captured by a dummy

variable, Male, which takes the value 1 for men and

the value 0 for women. For the variables measuring the

number of years that the offspring has worked with

each parent, these interaction terms will capture same-

sex interaction effects, but they will also control for

parental same-sex investments working through thehuman-capital channel.3

Throughout, we control for a number of other

individual characteristics that may be expected to

affect the self-employment choice, including the

wealth of the parents. Summary statistics of these

and the variables mentioned above are presented in

Table1.

From the first part of the Table, we observe thatclose to 1.0 % of the observations involve transitions

to self-employment, i.e. on average, 1 out of 100

persons become self-employed each year. From the

second part of the Table, it follows that 29 and 10 % of

the children have fathers and mothers, respectively,

with self-employment experience. The next rows

present the self-employment intensities of the parents.

The majority (80 %) of the self-employed mothers

(i.e. those with a strictly positive intensity) have

intensities below 50 % meaning that they have been

self-employed less than half of the years since 1980.Among the self-employed fathers, close to 50 % have

been self-employed more than half of the time

indicating that males have higher self-employment

intensities than females. Most of the children with

self-employed parents were still living at home when

their parents were self-employed, and the average

work experience from the fathers firm is considerably

higher than the average work experience from the

mothers firm.

In the final part of the Table, the characteristics of

the children are shown. The average age in the sampleis 29.9 years, and the children have on average

12.7 years of schooling and 8.7 years of labour market

experience.4 Furthermore, 64 % have a partner, 41 %

have children themselves and 33 % are living in the

Copenhagen area. The measure of the parents total

wealth is from 1996, the last year where it is observed

in the data.

Before we turn to the multivariate analyses and the

more formal tests of the hypotheses, let us consider

some simple correlations between the main variables

3Lindquist et al. (2013) try to test for the importance of parental

same-sex investments by including the number of sisters

(brothers) interacted with the self-employment status of the

mother (father). Their idea is that if the same-sex correlations

were driven by parental same-sex investments, then a larger

number of sisters should have a negative effect, as the

investment has to be divided between all sisters. However, a

negative effect would also be consistent with social-learning

Footnote 3 continued

theory, as we would then expect less interaction between the

mother and the child and therefore a smaller role-model effect.

Hence, controlling for the number of years that the offspring has

worked with each parent seems a more direct way to control for

parental same-sex investments.4

In the estimations below, we rely on a more flexible

specification of schooling, using both Years of schooling and

dummies for nine different categories of education programmes

based on length and type.


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of interest to get a first impression of whether the data

support the various hypotheses.

Table2 shows the annual transition rates to self-

employment conditional on the self-employment

experience of the parents. The transition rates are

presented separately for males and females. As the

transition rates are small, the odds ratios are basically

equal to the relative transition rates, i.e. the transition

rate for those with a self-employed father (or mother)

relative to the transition rate for those without a self-

employed father (or mother). Not surprisingly, tran-

sition rates are generally higher for males than for

females, and having a parent with self-employmentexperience raises the probability of becoming self-

employed (all odds ratios significantly exceed one).

More interestingly, having a self-employed mother

doubles the probability of becoming self-employed for

females, while it raises the probability for males by

less than 60 %. Similarly, having a father with

experience from self-employment also roughly dou-

bles the transition probability for males, while it adds

less than 60 % to the probability for females. This is a

strong indication that gender-specific effects are

present in the data.Table3considers only those observations where at

least one of the parents has been self-employed. The

left part of Table 3focuses on observations where the

father has been self-employed for at least one year in

the period considered, while the right part of the Table

presents similar figures for observations where the

mother has been self-employed for at least one year.

We can see that a higher intensity of the self-

employment experience of the father significantly

raises the probability that the male offspring

becomes self-employed, while there does not seemto be an effect of a higher intensity on the female

offspring. If we disregard the relatively few obser-

vations where the mother has been self-employed

during the entire period (the last column in the

Table), it also appears that a higher intensity of the

maternal self-employment experience raises the

transition rate for the offspring, but now relatively

more for females. As in Table2, this points to a

gender-specific effect of the parents experience

from self-employment.

Using the same observations as in Table 3, Table4divides the observations according to whether (some

of) the self-employment experience of the parents was

obtained while the child was living at home. Despite

the fact that the effect of the father and the effect of the

mother look very similar for males (and also for

females), the differences in odds ratios are again

important and significant. For males, it increases the

transition probability by 80 % to have had a father

who was self-employed while he (the son) was still

Table 1 Summary statistics

Mean SD Min Max

Dependent variable

Transition to self-

employment

0.008 0.090 0 1

Parental characteristicsFather self-employed 0.290 0.454 0 1

Mother self-employed 0.101 0.301 0 1

Fathers self-employment intensity:

0 % 0.711 0.454 0 1

150 % 0.159 0.366 0 1

5199 % 0.086 0.281 0 1

100 % 0.044 0.205 0 1

Mothers self-employment intensity

0 % 0.899 0.301 0 1

150 % 0.080 0.272 0 1

5199 % 0.017 0.129 0 1

100 % 0.004 0.060 0 1

Father self-employed

while child living at

home

0.249 0.432 0 1

Mother self-employed

while child living at

home

0.075 0.264 0 1

Years employed with

father

0.261 1.219 0 28

Years employed with

mother

0.038 0.441 0 28

Individual characteristics

Male 0.536 0.499 0 1

Age 29.863 6.073 15 44

Partner 0.642 0.479 0 1

Children 0.409 0.492 0 1

Years of schooling 12.660 2.400 9 18

Years of labour market

experience (as

employee)

8.730 5.606 0 29

Parents wealth (1996),

DKK millions

0.416 2.733 -328.31 909.60

Copenhagen area 0.334 0.472 0 1

See text for definitions of variables. Number of observations:

6,263,246

A. Hoffmann et al.

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living with his parents. The similar effect is less than

50 % for females. This picture is reversed when we

look at the effects of a mother who was self-employed

while the child was living at home. Here, it raises thesubsequent transition probability by around 90 % for

females, while the effect for males is less than 50 %.

Finally, Table5 splits the data according to

whether the individual has previously been employed

in the parents firms. This is in general seen to be

associated with a markedly higher subsequent transi-

tion rate for both males and females, and again, there is

a relatively strong indication of gender-specific

effects.

Table 4 Transition rates by gender and parental self-employment experience while child was living at home

Father self-employed while child living at home Mother self-employed while child living at home

Yes No Odds ratio Yes No Odds ratio

Male 0.0172

(0.00014)

0.0095

(0.00019)

1.83

(0.02)

0.0161

(0.00025)

0.0110

(0.00006)

1.47

(0.03)

Female 0.0056

(0.00009)

0.0039

(0.00004)

1.45

(0.03)

0.0076

(0.00019)

0.0040

(0.00004)

1.88

(0.05)

See text for definitions of variables and Table2 for calculation of odds ratios. The left (right) part of the table only includes

observations where the father (mother) has been self-employed for at least 1 year since 1980. Standard errors in parentheses

Table 5 Transition rates by gender and work experience from

the parents firms

Employed with father Employed with mother

Yes No Yes No

Male 0.0224

(0.00027)

0.0103

(0.00006)

0.0223

(0.00074)

0.0112

(0.00006)

Female 0.0068

(0.00018)

0.0041

(0.00004)

0.0111

(0.00049)

0.0042

(0.00004)

See text for definitions of variables. The left (right) part of the

table only includes observations where the father (mother) has

been self-employed for at least 1 year since 1980. Standard

errors in parentheses

Table 2 Transition rates by gender and self-employment experience of the parents

Father self-employed Mother self-employed

Yes No Odds ratio Yes No Odds ratio

Male 0.0172

(0.00013)

0.009

(0.00006)

1.92

(0.02)

0.0168

(0.00022)

0.0108

(0.00006)

1.57

(0.03)

Female 0.0058

(0.00008)

0.0037

(0.00004)

1.57

(0.03)

0.0079

(0.00016)

0.0039

(0.00004)

2.04

(0.05)

See text for definitions of variables. Odds ratios are calculated as follows: ORMale,Father = (PMale,FatherSE/(1-PMale,FatherSE))/

(PMale,FatherNSE/(1-PMale,FatherNSE)), where PMale,FatherSE and PMale,FatherNSE are the transition probabilities for a male with a self-

employed father and a non-self-employed father, respectively. Standard errors in parentheses

Table 3 Transition rates by gender and the intensity of parental self-employment experience

Fathers self-employment intensity Mothers self-employment intensity

150 % 5199 % 100 % 150 % 5199 % 100 %

Male 0.0148(0.00017)

0.0192(0.00026)

0.0220(0.00038)

0.0167(0.00025)

0.0176(0.00055)

0.0150(0.00109)

Female 0.0058

(0.00011)

0.0059

(0.00015)

0.0053

(0.00020)

0.0076

(0.00018)

0.0096

(0.00044)

0.0076

(0.00086)

See text for definitions of variables. The left (right) part of the table only includes observations where the father (mother) has been

self-employed for at least 1 year since 1980. Standard errors in parentheses


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Table 6 Transition probability and parental experience, main specification (probit estimation)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)


Male 0.402**

(0.004)

0.403**

(0.004)

0.403**

(0.004)

0.398**

(0.004)

0.384**

(0.006)

0.384**

(0.006)

0.384**

(0.006)

0.385**

(0.006)

Parental characteristics

Mother self-employed 0.142**

(0.005)

0.203**

(0.009)

Father self-employed 0.187**

(0.004)

0.128**

(0.007)


150 % 0.141**

(0.006)

0.151**

(0.010)

0.144**

(0.010)

0.184**

(0.010)

0.189**

(0.017)

0.179**

(0.017)

5199 % 0.195**

(0.012)

0.208**

(0.015)

0.178**

(0.016)

0.291**

(0.019)

0.298**

(0.025)

0.248**

(0.027)

100 % 0.171**

(0.026)

0.185**

(0.028)

0.154**

(0.029)

0.246**

(0.044)

0.253**

(0.048)

0.199**

(0.050)

Fathers self-employment intensity

150 % 0.140**

(0.005)

0.162**

(0.008)

0.155**

(0.008)

0.112**

(0.009)

0.136**

(0.014)

0.130**

(0.015)

5199 % 0.227**

(0.006)

0.256**

(0.010)

0.205**

(0.010)

0.151**

(0.011)

0.182**

(0.019)

0.147**

(0.019)

100 % 0.271**

(0.007)

0.301**

(0.012)

0.226**

(0.012)

0.150**

(0.016)

0.182**

(0.022)

0.137**

(0.023)

Mother self-employed while child living at home -0.014

(0.011)

-0.013

(0.011)

-0.007

(0.019)

-0.007

(0.019)

Father self-employed while child living at home -

0.030**(0.009)

-

0.034**(0.009)

-

0.032*(0.016)

-

0.035*(0.016)

Years employed with mother 0.022**

(0.003)

0.030**

(0.004)

Years employed with father 0.029**

(0.001)

0.027**

(0.003)

Interactions

Male 9 Mother self-employed -0.087**

(0.011)

Male 9 Father self-employed 0.083**

(0.008)

Male 9 Mothers self-employment intensity150 % -0.062**

(0.013)

-0.055**

(0.020)

-0.050*

(0.020)

5199 % -0.142**

(0.024)

-0.134**

(0.032)

-0.102**

(0.033)

100 % -0.108*

(0.054)

-0.099

(0.059)

-0.064

(0.061)

Male 9 Fathers self-employment intensity

150 % 0.040**

(0.011)

0.037*

(0.017)

0.035*

(0.017)

A. Hoffmann et al.

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4 Results

Section4.1contains our main results, while Sect.4.2

adds a number of robustness checks. In Sect. 4.3, we

compare the importance of role models in self-

employment with the importance of role models for

the propensity to become a teacher.

4.1 Main results

Table6 contains a number of probit estimations in

order to formally test the hypotheses laid out in Sects.

2. In all estimations, we use a dummy for the transition

from wage employment into self-employment as the

dependent variable. In addition to the variables of

interest for the hypotheses in question, all modelsinclude the control variables from Table1as well as

year dummies, eight industry dummies and four

dummies for ethnicity. To save space, the coefficient

estimates for these control variables are omitted from

Table6, but they are generally as expected.

The first two columns of Table 6test the observa-

tion hypothesis, i.e. that parental experience from self-

employment positively influences the self-employ-

ment choices of the children. Consistent with the

existing literature, we find strong support for this

hypothesis. In column 1, we have included the two

dummies for the parents self-employment experi-

ence. Both dummies are found to have a significant

positive effect on the transition probability. As in

Table2, the effect of a self-employed father is found

to be strongest.

In column 2, each dummy is replaced by three

dummies reflecting the intensity of the self-employ-

ment experience of the parents (no experience is the

reference category). The dummies are defined as in

Table3above. As can be seen, the positive effect of

the fathers self-employment experience increases

with the intensity of the experience. This is also the

case for the self-employment intensity of the mother

except when it is increased to 100 %, where the effectis slightly lower (although not significantly) than with

an intensity between 51 and 99 %. However, we

should remember that rather few individuals have a

mother who has been self-employed during the entire

period considered, cf. Table1.

In sum, columns 1 and 2 provide strong support for

the observation hypothesis. As we control for parental

wealth throughout, the results are unlikely to reflect an

effect running through the financial channel, but they

Table 6 continued

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

5199 % 0.107**

(0.013)

0.103**

(0.022)

0.084**

(0.023)

100 % 0.166**

(0.018)

0.162**

(0.026)

0.126**

(0.027)

Male 9 Mother self-employed while child living at home -0.009

(0.024)

-0.007

(0.024)

Male 9 Father self-employed while child living at home 0.004

(0.019)

0.003

(0.019)

Male 9 Years employed with mother -0.015**

(0.006)

Male 9 Years employed with father 0.000

(0.003)

Observations 6,263,246 6,263,246 6,263,246 6,263,246 6,263,246 6,263,246 6,263,246 6,263,246

Log likelihood -270,392 -270,201 -270,193 -270,045 -270,313 -270,090 -270,083 -269,951

The dependent variable is a dummy for the transition into self-employment between year t-1 and t. Control variables included but

not reported are: age, age squared, years of schooling, eight dummies for education programmes defined by length and type, years of

labour market experience, a dummy for having a partner, a dummy for having children, a dummy for living in the Copenhagen area,

parents total wealth in 1996, seven year dummies, eight industry dummies and four dummies for ethnicity. **, * indicate significance

at the 1 % level and 5 % level, respectively. Standard errors clustered at the individual level in parentheses


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Fig. 1 Partial effect of fathers self-employment

Fig. 2 Partial effect of mothers self-employment


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transition probability with close to 2.5 % points for

females and by approximately half of this for males.

Taken together, the Figures show that there is not only

statistically significant evidence in favour of the same-

sex hypothesis, the magnitudes of the gender-specific

effects are also sizeable.

An alternative way of illustrating the quantitativeimportance of having a self-employed father is to plot

therelativepartial effects (i.e. the partial effects from

above divided by the estimated initial transition

probability, Uxb) against the estimated initialtransition probability. This is done in Fig. 3, while the

effects of having a self-employed mother are illus-

trated in Fig.4.

These figures show that the relative effects are

largest at small initial transition probabilities,

where having a self-employed father can double the

transition probability for males, while increasing it by50 % for females, and vice versa in the case of a self-

employed mother. At higher levels of the transition

probabilities, the relative effects are smaller but still

sizeable. Hence, at initial transition probabilities

around 0.05, having a self-employed father raises the

transition probability by more than 50 % for men and

by around 30 % for women. Similar but opposite

effects are found in the case of a self-employed

mother.

Columns 68 in Table 6 contain further analyses

of the same-sex hypothesis. In column 6, we use the

same specification as in column 2, but with inter-

action terms between the gender and the threedifferent dummies for the intensities of the parents

self-employment experience. As in column 5, the

results are strongly supporting the same-sex hypoth-

esis. Being a male significantly increases the

importance of the fathers self-employment inten-

sityand more at higher intensitieswhile it

decreases the importance of the mothers self-

employment intensity.

In column 7, we also include interaction terms

between the gender and the dummies for the parents

being self-employed while the child was living athome. Although the signs of the estimated coefficients

again support the same-sex hypothesis, the results are

not statistically significant.

Finally, in column 8, we again control for

experience from the parents firms and interact

these variables with the gender dummy. In this

Fig. 3 Relative partial effect of fathers self-employment

A. Hoffmann et al.

1 3


15/26

way, we should be able to control for parental

same-sex investments as argued above. In the raw

data, we observe that 1.6 and 6.9 % of the women

have worked for their mother and father, respec-

tively, while 1.2 and 9.0 % of the men have

worked for their mother and father, respectively.

Hence, women (men) are relatively more likely tohave worked for their mother (father)an indica-

tion that parental same-sex investments are indeed

taking place. Furthermore, the average number of

years that a woman has worked for her mother

(father) is 2.9 years (2.9 years), while the average

number of years that a man has worked for his

mother (father) is 2.8 years (3.5 years). Again, this

is an indication that same-sex parental investments

in human capital are made (especially by the

fathers).

As can be seen from column 8, the effects ofhaving worked for the mother and the father are

rather similar for females, while for males the

effects of having worked for the mother are

weaker. However, controlling for this only has a

small influence on the other coefficients, leading us

to conclude that although parental same-sex invest-

ments seem to be present they can only explain

a small share of the same-sex correlations.

This supports that the evidence in favour of the

same-sex hypothesis is not driven by human-capital

effects.6

Taken together, the evidence in Table 6 provides

strong support for two of our three hypotheses: the

observation hypothesis and the same-sex hypothesis,

while the evidence for the interaction hypothesis is

more mixed. We also argued above that theevidence in favour of the observation and same-

sex hypotheses is likely to reflect an effect through

the preference channel as we controlled for both

parental wealth and work experience from the

parents firms, whereas the evidence in favour of

the interaction hypothesis can reflect both a human-

capital and a preference effect. Somewhat surpris-

inglyand in contrast to the predictions of social-

learning theorywe did not find evidence that

preferences for self-employment are more effec-

tively passed on to the children if the childrenexperience their parents as self-employed while they

are still living at home.

Fig. 4 Relative partial effect of mothers self-employment

6Furthermore, we have also tried to run the regressions in

Table6 without those observations where the individual has

worked for his/her parents. The results (not reported) are very

similar.


1 3


16/26

4.2 Robustness analyses

In this section, we consider a number of robustness

checks of the findings from the previous section.

First, Table7contains estimates similar to those in

Table6, but for males and females separately. The

estimation results in columns 14 are for males, while

the results in columns 58 are for females. This

corresponds to estimating the original model from

Table6 allowing for different gender-specific coeffi-

cients of all variables, not just the variables that relate to

the self-employment experience of the parents.

The parameter estimates for females in Table7

(columns 58) should be compared to those in the upper

part of columns 58 in Table6, while those for males

(columns 14) should be compared to the sum of the

coefficients of the original variables and of the interac-

tion terms in columns 58 of Table 6. As can be seen,

Table 7 Transition probability and parental experience, males versus females (probit estimation)

Males Females

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)



(0.006)

0.200**

(0.009)


(0.005)

0.128**

(0.007)


150 % 0.122**

(0.007)

0.134**

(0.012)

0.129**

(0.012)

0.183**

(0.011)

0.188**

(0.017)

0.178**

(0.017)

5199 % 0.150**

(0.014)

0.165**

(0.019)

0.147**

(0.020)

0.286**

(0.019)

0.292**

(0.026)

0.247**

(0.027)

100 % 0.134**

(0.032)

0.150**

(0.035)

0.132**

(0.035)

0.241**

(0.045)

0.248**

(0.049)

0.199**

(0.050)

Fathers self-employment intensity150 % 0.153**

(0.006)

0.176**

(0.010)

0.169**

(0.010)

0.108**

(0.009)

0.123**

(0.015)

0.118**

(0.015)

5199 % 0.256**

(0.007)

0.287**

(0.012)

0.233**

(0.013)

0.148**

(0.011)

0.168**

(0.019)

0.135**

(0.019)

100 % 0.305**

(0.009)

0.336**

(0.014)

0.254**

(0.014)

0.168**

(0.016)

0.189**

(0.022)

0.146**

(0.023)


(0.014)

-0.015

(0.014)

-0.007

(0.019)

-0.006

(0.020)

Father self-employed while child living at home -0.032**

(0.011)

-0.036**

(0.011)

-0.021

(0.016)

-0.023

(0.016)

Years employed with mother 0.015**(0.004)

0.026**(0.004)


(0.001)

0.025**

(0.003)

Observations 3,358,379 3,358,379 3,358,379 3,358,379 2,904,867 2,904,867 2,904,867 2,904,867

Log likelihood -194,900 -194,720 -194,714 -194,434 -74,405 -74,382 -74,381 -74,316






A. Hoffmann et al.

1 3


17/26

Table 8 Transition probability and parental experience, excluding start-ups in parents firms and industries (probit estimation)

Excl. individuals taking over the parents firm Excl. individuals starting up in the parents

industry

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)


Male 0.385**

(0.006)

0.385**

(0.006)

0.385**

(0.006)

0.385**

(0.006)

0.387**

(0.006)

0.387**

(0.006)

0.386**

(0.006)

0.386**

(0.006)



(0.009)

0.163**

(0.010)


(0.007)

0.096**

(0.007)


150 % 0.180**

(0.011)

0.183**

(0.017)

0.176**

(0.017)

0.158**

(0.011)

0.160**

(0.018)

0.162**

(0.018)

5199 % 0.262**

(0.020)

0.266**

(0.026)

0.234**

(0.027)

0.190**

(0.022)

0.193**

(0.028)

0.200**

(0.029)

100 % 0.239**

(0.045)

0.242**

(0.049)

0.209**

(0.050)

0.135**

(0.050)

0.138*

(0.054)

0.146**

(0.054)


150 % 0.112**

(0.009)

0.135**

(0.015)

0.132**

(0.015)

0.100**

(0.009)

0.126**

(0.015)

0.126**

(0.015)

5199 % 0.137**

(0.011)

0.166**

(0.019)

0.147**

(0.019)

0.097**

(0.012)

0.131**

(0.019)

0.132**

(0.020)

100 % 0.131**

(0.016)

0.161**

(0.023)

0.136**

(0.023)

0.080**

(0.017)

0.116**

(0.023)

0.118**

(0.024)

Mother self-employed while child living at home -

0.004(0.020)

-

0.004(0.020)

-

0.004(0.020)

-

0.003(0.020)

Father self-employed while child living at home -0.031

(0.016)

-0.032*

(0.016)

-0.036*

(0.016)

-0.036*

(0.016)


(0.005)

-0.006

(0.006)


(0.003)

-0.001

(0.004)

Interactions


(0.012)

-0.051**

(0.012)


(0.009)

0.017*

(0.009)

Male 9 Mothers self-employment intensity

150 % -0.059**

(0.013)

-0.051*

(0.021)

-0.047*

(0.021)

-0.045**

(0.013)

-0.038

(0.022)

-0.036

(0.022)

5199 % -0.129**

(0.025)

-0.118**

(0.033)

-0.093**

(0.034)

-0.082**

(0.027)

-0.072*

(0.035)

-0.067

(0.036)

100 % -0.100

(0.055)

-0.089

(0.060)

-0.062

(0.061)

-0.019

(0.060)

-0.008

(0.065)

-0.004

(0.066)


1 3


18/26


19/26

Table 9 Alternative dependent variables, self-employment status and self-employed between 1995 and 2009

Self-employed in year t Self-employed between 1995 and 2009

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)


Male 0.599**

(0.007)

0.596**

(0.007)

0.596**

(0.007)

0.596**

(0.007)

0.625**

(0.008)

0.625**

(0.008)

0.625**

(0.008)

0.626**

(0.008)



(0.012)

0.279**

(0.013)


(0.009)

0.189**

(0.010)


150 % 0.223**

(0.013)

0.215**

(0.021)

0.202**

(0.022)

0.259**

(0.014)

0.251**

(0.022)

0.236**

(0.022)

5199 % 0.413**

(0.024)

0.401**

(0.032)

0.334**

(0.033)

0.384**

(0.030)

0.374**

(0.038)

0.292**

(0.041)100 % 0.368**

(0.053)

0.355**

(0.059)

0.284**

(0.060)

0.555**

(0.081)

0.542**

(0.086)

0.448**

(0.088)


150 % 0.139**

(0.011)

0.141**

(0.019)

0.133**

(0.019)

0.161**

(0.012)

0.191**

(0.019)

0.183**

(0.019)

5199 % 0.244**

(0.014)

0.247**

(0.024)

0.195**

(0.024)

0.228**

(0.015)

0.269**

(0.025)

0.222**

(0.026)

100 % 0.277**

(0.020)

0.280**

(0.028)

0.215**

(0.029)

0.270**

(0.027)

0.313**

(0.034)

0.243**

(0.035)

Mother self-employed while child living at home 0.013

(0.025)

0.012

(0.025)

0.012

(0.026)

0.014

(0.026)Father self-employed while child living at home -0.003

(0.021)

-0.007

(0.021)

-0.043*

(0.021)

-0.045*

(0.021)


(0.006)

0.035**

(0.006)


(0.004)

0.027**

(0.003)

Interactions


(0.015)

-0.098**

(0.016)


(0.011)

0.121**

(0.012)


150 % -0.094**

(0.016)

-0.083**

(0.026)

-0.077**

(0.026)

-0.074**

(0.018)

-0.031

(0.028)

-0.023

(0.028)

5199 % -0.201**

(0.029)

-0.186**

(0.039)

-0.146**

(0.041)

-0.144**

(0.038)

-0.083

(0.048)

-0.034

(0.051)

100 % -0.236**

(0.067)

-0.218**

(0.073)

-0.176*

(0.075)

-0.423**

(0.107)

-0.355**

(0.112)

-0.299**

(0.115)



1 3


20/26

strengthened in our conclusion that the support for theobservation and the same-sex hypothesis doesnot stem

from an effect through the financial channel.7 Instead,

we feel comfortable concluding that it reflects a

preference effect, as controlling for work experience

from the parents firms (column 4) still has a very

limitedeffecton the coefficient estimates of the intensity

variables. In other words, sons do not only follow in the

footsteps of their self-employed fathers when they

inherit (or work in) the family firm.

Takeovers of the family firm are identified through

the workplace identifier in our data set. In some cases,this identifier may change when a firm is inherited

by the next generation. In this case, the approach taken

above may not identify all the cases in which a firm is

handed over to a son or a daughter. To make sure thatwe eliminate all such cases, we now throw out all

observations where the individual becomes self-

employed in the same industry as the parents. A

similar approach has been used in Srensen (2007) and

Lindquist et al. (2013). Distinguishing between 111

industries in the economy, this eliminates more than

4,000 additional individuals. The results are presented

in columns 58 of Table8.

Despite the large number of observations elimi-

nated, we still find considerable support for both the

observation and the same-sex hypothesis. Some of theinteraction effects are quantitatively smaller and

slightly less significant, but this is not very surprising

given that we have excluded more than 5,000 (suc-

cessful) individuals compared to Table6and

probably those where we would expect the parental

influence to be strongest, namely the cases where the

children choose an occupation within the same

industry as the parents. Still, five out of the six

coefficients of the interaction terms with the self-

Table 9 continued

Self-employed in year t Self-employed between 1995 and 2009

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

150 % 0.077**

(0.013)

0.061**

(0.022)

0.057*

(0.022)

0.083**

(0.014)

0.075**

(0.023)

0.072**

(0.023)

5199 % 0.265**

(0.016)

0.244**

(0.028)

0.211**

(0.028)

0.168**

(0.018)

0.156**

(0.030)

0.128**

(0.031)

100 % 0.329**

(0.022)

0.307**

(0.033)

0.250**

(0.034)

0.200**

(0.032)

0.187**

(0.041)

0.135**

(0.043)


(0.030)

-0.012

(0.030)

-0.068*

(0.033)

-0.067*

(0.033)


(0.025)

0.017

(0.025)

0.012

(0.025)

0.009

(0.025)

Male 9 Years employed with mother -0.019*

(0.008)

-0.017*

(0.008)

Male9

Years employed with father 0.001(0.004)

0.001(0.004)

Observations 7,134,207 7,134,207 7,134,207 7,134,207 486,452 486,452 486,452 486,452

Log likelihood -826,590 -822,620 -822,614 -820,305 -132,210 -132,068 -132,059 -131,891

The dependent variable is a dummy for being self-employed in yeart(columns 14) and a dummy for having been self-employed at

least once between 1995 and 2009 (columns 58). In columns 14, a panel for the years 19952009 is used, whereas in columns 58,

a cross section from 2009 is used. Control variables included but not reported are: age, age squared, years of schooling, eight

dummies for education programmes defined by length and type, years of labour market experience, a dummy for having a partner, a

dummy for having children, a dummy for living in the Copenhagen area, parents total wealth in 1996, seven year dummies, eight

industry dummies and four dummies for ethnicity. **, * indicate significance at the 1 % level and 5 % level, respectively. Standard

errors clustered at the individual level in parentheses

7Leaving out the observations where the individuals take over

the firm of the father or the mother also has only a small negative

effect on the odds ratios from Table 2. The odds ratios for males

decrease from 1.92 and 1.57 to 1.82 and 1.56, respectively,

while the odds ratios for females decrease from 1.57 and 2.04 to

1.54 and 1.99, respectively.

A. Hoffmann et al.

1 3


21/26

Table 10 Transition probability and parental experience, assortative mating of parents (probit estimation)

Controlling for self-employment of both

parents

Excl. observations with both parents self-

employed

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)


Male 0.384**

(0.006)

0.385**

(0.006)

0.384**

(0.006)

0.385**

(0.006)

0.384**

(0.006)

0.385**

(0.006)

0.385**

(0.006)

0.386**

(0.006)



(0.013)

0.230**

(0.013)


(0.008)

0.138**

(0.008)

Mother and Father self-

employed

-0.056**

(0.019)

-0.049**

(0.019)

-0.049**

(0.019)

-0.052**

(0.019)


150 % 0.208**

(0.014)

0.212**

(0.019)

0.204**

(0.019)

0.203**

(0.015)

0.214**

(0.023)

0.205**

(0.023)

5199 % 0.315**

(0.021)

0.320**

(0.027)

0.272**

(0.028)

0.329**

(0.026)

0.344**

(0.036)

0.290**

(0.037)

100 % 0.262**

(0.045)

0.269**

(0.049)

0.216**

(0.050)

0.285**

(0.051)

0.302**

(0.058)

0.244**

(0.060)

Fathers self-employment intensity .

150 % 0.122**

(0.010)

0.145**

(0.015)

0.141**

(0.015)

0.123**

(0.010)

0.149**

(0.016)

0.144**

(0.016)

5199 % 0.159**

(0.011)

0.190**

(0.019)

0.155**

(0.019)

0.160**

(0.012)

0.193**

(0.021)

0.158**

(0.021)

100 % 0.156**(0.016)

0.188**(0.022)

0.143**(0.023)

0.148**(0.017)

0.183**(0.025)

0.135**(0.025)


(0.019)

-0.007

(0.019)

-0.017

(0.028)

-0.018

(0.028)

Father self-employed while child living at home -0.032*

(0.016)

-0.035*

(0.016)

-0.035

(0.018)

-0.039*

(0.018)


(0.004)

0.034**

(0.006)


(0.003)

0.030**

(0.003)

Interactions

Male9Mother self-employed -0.081**

(0.016)

-0.081**

(0.016)


(0.009)

0.082**

(0.009)

Male 9 Mother and Father self-

employed

-0.009

(0.023)

0.007

(0.023)

0.007

(0.023)

0.007

(0.023)


1 3


22/26

employment intensities of the mother and the father in

column 8 are significant at (at least) the 10 % level.8 In

other words, the importance of parental role

models seems to extend beyond the family firm andindustry.

As argued in Sect.3, other studies of the intergen-

erational transmission mechanism have used

alternative dependent variables. To test the robustness

of our results towards this, Table9 repeats the

estimations from columns 58 of Table6 using two

alternative dependent variables: (1) a dummy forbeing self-employed in yeart(columns 14); and (2) a

dummy for having been self-employed at least once

between 1995 and 2009. In the latter case, we use a

cross section from 2009.

As can be seen, the results are very similar to those

in columns 58 of Table6. In fact, when using Self-

employed in year t as the dependent variable, the

estimated coefficients of the interaction terms tend to

be slightly more significant than in Table 6. Thus, we

Table 10 continued

Controlling for self-employment of both

parents

Excl. observations with both parents self-

employed

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)


150 % -0.064**

(0.017)

-0.057*

(0.023)

-0.052*

(0.023)

-0.053**

(0.018)

-0.044

(0.029)

-0.036

(0.029)

51 %99 % -0.144**

(0.026)

-0.136**

(0.033)

-0.105**

(0.035)

-0.178**

(0.034)

-0.166**

(0.045)

-0.116*

(0.046)

100 % -0.109*

(0.055)

-0.100

(0.060)

-0.065

(0.061)

-0.144*

(0.065)

-0.130

(0.074)

-0.077

(0.075)


150 % 0.037**

(0.011)

0.035

(0.018)

0.032

(0.018)

0.031**

(0.012)

0.031

(0.020)

0.028

(0.020)

5199 % 0.105**

(0.013)

0.101**

(0.022)

0.082**

(0.023)

0.109**

(0.014)

0.109**

(0.025)

0.088**

(0.025)

100 % 0.164**

(0.018)

0.160**

(0.026)

0.124**

(0.027)

0.173**

(0.019)

0.173**

(0.029)

0.135**

(0.030)


(0.024)

-0.007

(0.024)

-0.013

(0.034)

-0.013

(0.034)


(0.019)

0.003

(0.019)

-0.000

(0.022)

-0.000

(0.022)

Male 9 Years employed with mother -0.014*

(0.006)

-0.027**

(0.009)

Male 9 Years employed with father 0.000

(0.003)

-0.001

(0.003)

Observations 6,263,246 6,263,246 6,263,246 6,263,246 5,970,452 5,970,452 5,970,452 5,970,452Log likelihood -270,293 -270,080 -270,073 -269,715 -248,630 -248,437 -248,428 -248,105






8Furthermore, if we estimate the model with just Years of

Schooling as a control for education instead of Years of

Schooling and nine dummies for different types of education

programmes, four of these five interaction terms become

significant at the 5 % level.

A. Hoffmann et al.

1 3


23/26

still find considerable support for both the observation

and the same-sex hypothesis, while the evidence in

favour of the interaction hypothesis remains rather

mixed.

In order to compare more directly with the

estimates in Lindquist et al. (2013), we have also

estimated the model in column 5 of Table 9 using a

linear probability model. In this case, we get partial-

effect estimates for males of 0.043 and 0.071 of having

a self-employed mother and father, respectively.Given that around 15 % of the males have been self-

employed, relative partial effects can be calculated as:

0.043/0.15 & 0.29 and 0.071/0.15& 0.47. For

females, the corresponding relative partial effects are

approximately 0.51 and 0.30. These effects are very

similar in size to those that can be computed from the

estimates for non-adopted children in Lindquist et al.

(2013) in the lower part of their Table7, using the fact

that 25 % of the non-adopted sons and 14 % of the

non-adopted daughters have been entrepreneurs

(Table2a). This results in relative partial effects for

males of approximately 0.43 and 0.52 of having an

entrepreneurial mother and father, respectively, while

the corresponding numbers for females are 0.49 and

0.30.

A final issue to consider is assortative mating.The raw data reveal that for 16.2 % of the observations

with a self-employed father, the mother has also been

self-employed at some point. Similarly, for 46.4 % of

the observations with a self-employed mother, the

father has also been self-employed. This is a strong

indication that assortative mating is taking place in the

data. Could this be driving the gender-specific effects?

Imagine that the effect of a self-employed father is in

general larger (for both boys and girls), but that girls

have a higher threshold to cross before becoming self-

employed. In other words, for girls to become self-employed, it requires that both parents have been

self-employed. Since fathers are in general more likely

to be self-employed, this could show up as a larger

effect of the mothers on the daughters and hence

explain the observed gender-specific effects even

without gender-specific role models.9

To test the importance of this for the intergenera-

tional transmission mechanism, Table10 contains two

sets of re-estimations of columns 58 from Table6.

First, we have tried to include (1) a dummy taking the

value one if both parents have been self-employed;and (2) the interaction of this variable with our gender

dummy. The coefficient of the former variable

becomes significantly negative (but small), while the

coefficient of the interaction term becomes insignif-

icant. This indicates diminishing effects of both

parents being self-employedeffects which are sim-

ilar for boys and girls. Hence, it does not support the

above hypothesis, and the inclusion of these extra

controls only marginally affects the other coefficients.

Second, in columns 58, we drop all the observa-

tions where both parents have been self-employed.This results in estimates very similar to those in

columns 14 and therefore does not change the overall

conclusion. In sum, although assortative mating

between self-employed persons is observed in the

data, it cannot explain the gender-specific effects and

hence the support for the same-sex hypothesis.

Table 11 Transition probability, schoolteacher (probit

estimation)

(1)


Male 0.13**

(0.007)Parental characteristics

Mother teacher 0.20**

(0.010)

Father teacher 0.15**

(0.010)

Interactions

Male 9 Mother teacher -0.11**

(0.014)

Male 9 Father teacher -0.01

(0.015)

Observations 6,212,530

Log likelihood -155,718

The dependent variable is a dummy for the transition into

becoming a school teacher between year t-1 and t. Control

variables included but not reported are: age, age squared, years

of schooling, eight dummies for education programmes defined

by length and type, years of labour market experience, a

dummy for having a partner, a dummy for having children, a

dummy for living in the Copenhagen area, parents total wealth

in 1996, seven year dummies, eight industry dummies and four

dummies for ethnicity. **, * indicate significance at the 1 %

level and 5 % level, respectively. Standard errors clustered at

the individual level in parentheses

9We are indebted to one of the referees for suggesting this

potential mechanism.


1 3


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25/26

parental role models therefore seem to reach beyond

the family business and industry.

A number of studies in the literature have docu-

mented gender differences in the propensity to become

an entrepreneur; see, e.g. Fairlie and Meyer (1996) and

Verheul et al. (2006). A number of explanations have

been suggested to explain these differences; seeVerheul et al. (2006) for an overview. Our paper

offers a supplementary explanation for the observed

phenomenon, namely that the historical lack of female

entrepreneurs induces fewer women to become entre-

preneurs today. In other words, the lack of female

entrepreneurs in a country like Denmark may partly

reflect a lack of female role models. Changing this

pattern requires a concerted political effort building on

attentive ways of providing female entrepreneurial

role models.

The recommendation of such an effort should,however, also take into account how women fare as

entrepreneurs compared to men. A recent analysis

conducted by the Danish Business Authority (2010)

shows that male and female entrepreneurs differ in a

number of ways. The share of high-growth entrepre-

neurs is, e.g. higher among male entrepreneurs.

Women, on the other hand, have more education but

less labour market experience than men when starting

their own firm. Whether these differences translate

into higher or lower productivity and lifetime earnings

for female entrepreneurs is yet an unexplored issue.

Acknowledgments We thank the editor, Mirjam Van Praag,

and two anonymous referees for many useful comments and

suggestions, and we are grateful to Jan Holst Hansen and Philip

Willerslev-Olsen for excellent research assistance.

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