Who inherits the shop? Succession, daughters and firm survival in 1,100 informal Indian family businesses

Abstract

Family firm succession research is built almost entirely on registered, formal firms with documented ownership. We study succession in the informal sector, where ownership is undocumented and the transfer is social rather than legal. Following 1,100 informal family businesses across four Indian cities for six years, we find that firms transferred to daughters survive at materially higher rates than those transferred to sons (hazard ratio 0.68), and that the gap is explained not by the successor's characteristics but by selection: daughters are handed the business only when no son is available or willing, and the firms in that condition are systematically the healthier ones.

Keywords

• family business
• succession
• informal sector
• gender
• firm survival

References

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Cite this article

Deshpande, A., Iyer, R. (2026). Who inherits the shop? Succession, daughters and firm survival in 1,100 informal Indian family businesses. Lighthouse Journal of Management & Organisation, 11(4), 512–542. https://doi.org/10.53456/ljmo.2026.11.4.512