Enterprise and Small Business Principles

Gender and entrepreneurship

Sara Carter and Dinah Bennett

9.1 Introduction

Over the past 30 years two parallel trends have occurred. First, in almost every coun­try in the world there has been growth in both the size and the relative importance of the small business sector. Second, female suffrage, achieved in many countries within the twentieth century, has been followed by a large-scale expansion in the economic participation of women in the labour market. Although there is as yet no country in the world where women constitute the majority of business owners, women’s share of business ownership appears to be growing. Early research on gender and enterprise, initially undertaken in the US in the 1970s, but rapidly followed by analyses under­taken in a wide variety of country contexts, concentrated on developing descriptive analyses of women business owners. These studies portrayed women business owners as broadly similar to their male counterparts, but identified gender-specific barriers and constraints. Most recent research has attempted to empirically demonstrate the presence of gender-specific barriers and to assess the effect of these barriers on women- owned firms. This chapter reviews the development of the research literature on wom­en’s entrepreneurship and highlights some of the main themes that have emerged. Finally, the chapter assesses the likely future development of the women’s entrepre­neurship research field and specifies the need for greater theoretical engagement in order to unravel the causes and consequences of gender disadvantage.

9.2 Learning objectives

There are four learning objectives in this chapter:

1 To understand the personal and business characteristics of women entrepreneurs and the main management constraints that they may face.

2 To understand the similarities and differences in the characteristics of women entrepreneurs and the constraints they may face within differing country contexts.

3 To review the historical development and status of research investigating female entrepreneurship.

4 To understand the need for a greater theoretical engagement with the social sciences

in order to unravel the causes and consequences of gender disadvantage.

Key concepts

■ women ■ gender ■ entrepreneurship