Motivations and Challenges of Female Entrepreneurship in Developed and Developing Economies

Abstract

Globally, women entrepreneurs manage micro enterprises, social enterprises, small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and knowledge-based businesses. The entrepreneurship rates for women vary globally and, in general, are smaller than those for men. Both the Individual-centric approach and country-specific approach is necessary since women in different countries operate in a specific socioeconomic context (Singh, 2012; Pathak et al., 2013). For increasing the entrepreneurial rates of women businesses in a country, one has to consider the individual, psychological, socioeconomic and political context including education, mentoring, financial support, networking, and social, cultural and religious norms (GEM, 2014). An egalitarian social paradigm is proposed which removes social, cultural and religious constraints for women and counts on men to share equally in the household and family care activities. The motivations and challenges, of women entrepreneurs have to be understood in the context of the gender role and the duality of modernization vs. tradition (Belwal, 2014).