SVT Nyheter has looked at how payments from some of the larger corona subsidies - sales support, redundancy support and adjustment support - have been distributed between female and male entrepreneurs with sole proprietorships.

By looking at the penultimate digit in the social security number, authorities have been able to tell how many women and men with sole proprietorships have applied for and been granted corona support, as well as how large sums have gone to entrepreneurs of each gender.

Among registered individual companies with the Swedish Companies Registration Office, 35 percent are run by women and 65 percent by men.

But the aid paid to individual companies is distributed a little differently.

Of just over SEK 2 billion, 72 per cent has gone to companies run by men and 28 per cent has gone to women entrepreneurs.

The figures also show that men seek support more often.

"Many fixed costs"

Johan Kreicbergs, a business economist at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, believes that this may be partly due to the fact that traditionally male-dominated industries, such as construction and transport, are better affected by the subsidies.

- There are quite a few fixed costs and you get compensation for them in these systems, while some of the industries where women are overrepresented, such as personal services, do not have such high fixed costs, he says.

Malin Malmström, who is a professor of entrepreneurship at Luleå University of Technology, has seen in her research that public business support in general has more often been granted to male entrepreneurs.

She believes this may contribute to women entrepreneurs not seeking pandemic support as often as men.

- Both women and men learn over time if it is worth putting in the work required to apply for funding, she says.

Gets harder to survive

The fact that women's companies receive less financial support can lead to them finding it more difficult to grow and survive, but it is also about Sweden's competitiveness as a business country.

- If the entire entrepreneurship pool does not have access to financing on equal terms, there is a great risk that it is not the best companies, or those who are most in need of support, who get access to it, says Malin Malmström.