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Determinants of entrepreneurship: Are women different?
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In this paper we investigate, for the first time, how individual determinants of
entrepreneurship - such as age, income, education, work status, skills, access to networks and fear
of failure - differ between males and females. We conduct our exercise using individual data
provided by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), available for 46 countries, between
2001 and 2004. The literature on entrepreneurship has uncovered differences in the rate of
entrepreneurship between men and women, with women generally displaying lower
entrepreneurial activity than men. This is important since, as we show, entrepreneurial activity is
positively related across countries with the female to male entrepreneurial ratio. We examine total
entrepreneurship rates, as well as entrepreneurship driven by opportunity and by need. We find
that indeed entrepreneurial activity rates are lower for females across all but one of the countries
in the sample. Looking at categorical groups – by age interval, education, work status, etc. – we
find that female entrepreneurial rates are significantly lower than for males. For the first time we
test for differences in the characteristics of female and male entrepreneurs and find that female
entrepreneurs are slightly older, more frequently at home or not working, lower income and
lower educated, and less access to business networks than their male counterparts. AS to the
determinants of entrepreneurial rates themselves, the main differences across genders are the
lower impact of secondary education and the larger impact of skills and fear of failure in female
entrepreneurial rates relative to males. Results for entrepreneurship by opportunity and by
necessity confirm the larger importance of specific skills for women creating new businesses,.
Our results suggest that facilitating access to business networks and specific business skills are the
most powerful instruments to increase the rates of female entrepreneurship.