Entrepreneurship is essential to virtually every economy; however, Bahraini women face many challenges accessing business development. In particular, a major constraint for these women is their access to capital support. In 2020, the government signed a law prohibiting gender-based discrimination in access to credit to help the issue; nonetheless, its effectiveness has yet to be systematically examined. Using data from several sources, I test whether the law significantly affected the gender gap in borrowing for business purposes while controlling for other variables. Importantly, I find that women’s labor force participation is a significant factor in reducing the borrowing gap between men and women and that the gender-based discrimination law is only relevant for states with low labor force participation. These results are robust across multiple regression models. Hence, a culture supporting women’s economic involvement is the foundation for their credit access, and work-based legislation should focus on women’s workforce participation
