Women Entrepreneurship Issues and Policies

1
Women Entrepreneurship Issues and Policies

• Frédéric Delmar
• Stockholm School of Economics

2
Presentation

• Background
• Purpose
• Domains
• Women entrepreneurship and economic growth
• Statistics on women entrepreneurship
• Possible policy implications

3
Background of the study

• Womens entrepreneurship needs to be studied for
  two main reasons
• It has been recognized during the last decade as
  an important untapped source of economic growth
• The invisibility of women in entrepreneurship
  both in society in general and in the social
  sciences

4
Purpose

• To investigate the availability of statistics and
  research on the role of womens entrepreneurship
  in the economy
• To propose further developments to acquire better
  knowledge about women entrepreneurship.

5
Assessing the economic impact

• Women entrepreneurship play an important role
• In Europe 10 million self-employed women provide
  employment for 16 million people
• In the United States 6.4 million self-employed
  women provide employment for 9.2 million people
• In all economies self-employment is an important
  career alternative for women
• Women entrepreneurship is not only micro
  businesses

6
Lack of reliable information

• Need for more basic information (sex
  disaggregated, N, employment and sales)
• At least cross sectional estimates
• Method biases
• age,
• industry,
• entry and exit,
• legal form

7
Future and further changes

• Problems with definitions
• International comparisons
• Women entrepreneurship vs. small firms
• Need for longitudinal analyses (the dynamics of
  e-ship)
• Survival, growth, mergers and acquisitions

8
Conclusions

• Women entrepreneurship represents an important
  economic impact
• Some improvements have been made over the last
  ten years
• Still lack a reliable and detailed picture
• Cross-sectional a first step
• Longitudinal needed in the future