Relevance of gender in the policy area

Entrepreneurship plays an important role in creating jobs, innovation and growth. Fostering entrepreneurship is a key policy goal for governments who expect that high rates of entrepreneurial activity will create sustainable jobs. Against this backdrop, interest in women’s entrepreneurship has grown among scholars and policymakers. While the rationale for women’s entrepreneurship has traditionally focused on enhancing women’s equality, empowerment and social inclusion, its development is now seen to make good economic sense. Only in recent years has it become clear that women entrepreneurs can be a powerful economic resource.

World Bank studies show that women entrepreneurs make significant contributions to economic growth and poverty reduction, not only in developing countries but also in high-income countries. Women entrepreneurs create new jobs for themselves and others. Besides boosting employment, women’s entrepreneurship also supports the diversification of business, stimulating innovation and diversification in management, in production and marketing practices as well as in products and services. Women provide different solutions to management, organisational and business problems. Despite a major difficulty in examining and measuring entrepreneurship due to the blurred boundaries separating it from self-employment, the literature shows that women still face a great number of difficulties and obstacles in establishing and running businesses. These include:

• Access to finance
• Unfavourable business regulations
• Cultural barriers
• Choice of business types and sectors
• Information and training gaps
• Lack of contacts and access to social support and networking
• Education and occupational segregation
• Competing demands on time (double burden of home and work responsibilities).

Gender inequalities in the policy area – Main issues

• Access to credit, finance and capital
• Networking opportunities for women entrepreneurs
• Horizontal gender segregation
•  Reconciling work and family life
•  Prejudices and stereotypes about women in business.

Current policy priorities

• Creating a business-friendly environment
• Promoting entrepreneurship
• Improving access to new markets and internationalisation
• Facilitating access to finance
• Supporting SME competitiveness and innovation
• Providing key support networks and information for SMEs