Enhancing Women's Economic Empowerment Through Entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This chapter aims, first, to explore the state of the art of women's economic empowerment as a challenging research inquiry that needs a real investigation and to explore the different mechanisms of entrepreneurship development for women. It presents, then, the evidence of how Saudi women are economically empowered and how their potential is unleashed and sparked through entrepreneurship mechanisms. This chapter is based on a literature review on women's economic empowerment and entrepreneurship and a desk research involving the collection and analysis of already available information in the country. It introduces a needed ecosystem for Saudi women's economic empowerment and highlights some main empirical evidence from selected initiatives. Moreover, the recommendation that this chapter advances would be helpful to the practitioners, researchers, planners, and policymakers who are involved in the concerned area. Further, it tries to contribute to the literature of economic empowering of women through entrepreneurship in an emerging economy.

Women’s entrepreneurship in the GCC: a literature analysis from a socio-cultural perspective

“…Women's entrepreneurship offers governments the potential to optimize economic growth and use available resources (Faisal et al, 2017;Ennis, 2019). With a growing population dependent on the social welfare system, a greater receptivity to private enterprises can lessen pressures on the government while supporting economic growth (Aloulou, 2018;Tok, 2020). For women in emerging economies, there is also evidence of entrepreneurship directly Women's entrepreneurship in the GCC impacting poverty alleviation in low-income countries (Palali c et al, 2020) as lower educational levels, coupled with socio-cultural constraints, make women a particularly disadvantaged group.…”

“…Researchers have shown that women's entrepreneurship empowers them, improves social life (Itani et al , 2011; Aloulou, 2018; Debnath et al , 2020; Pachorkar et al , 2020) and enhances self-confidence (Danish and Smith, 2012) and financial independence, which, in turn, would place women in a position of power to influence family decisions (Alexandre and Kharabsheh, 2019). Moreover, many researchers have demonstrated the impact the empowered women entrepreneurs can have on women around them, for example, by hiring other female workers (Alkhaled, 2021).…”

National Policies for Women Empowerment: The Impact of Policy on Women Unemployment Rate in Saudi Arabia 2010-2019

“…Other researchers such as Wassim, (2017) aimed to explore the state of the art of women's economic empowerment as a challenging research inquiry that needs a realistic investigation and explores the different mechanisms of entrepreneurship development for Women. It presents the evidence of how Saudi women are economically empowered and how their potentials are unleashed sparked through entrepreneurship training and education programs; the incubation of their entrepreneurial and creative businesses, the building of their business networking, the deployment of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and social media for their potentials and competencies, and the corporate social responsibility, funding and community programs.…”