The Gendered Complexities of Promoting Female Entrepreneurship in the Gulf

Abstract

This paper explores women's entrepreneurial activities in the Oman and Qatar in light of the state attention given to promoting entrepreneurship in the region over the past decade. In the Gulf Arab countries, like in many rapidly developing economies, neoliberal growth discourse abounds. Along with this, the promotion of entrepreneurship and embrace of individual enterprise is paramount. Despite the dominance of the state in political and economic spaces, Gulf governments have embraced the rhetoric of the market and entrepreneurship. Drawing from semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and participant observation conducted between 2011 and 2015, this paper examines this phenomenon. In a region stereotyped with weak gender development outcomes, female entrepreneurship is largely cast as a positive development aimed at liberating and empowering women through individual enterprise. In contrast, this paper finds that the same forces that are meant to empower women often reproduce or reinforce certain gender norms while introducing new forms of dependency. Gulf female entrepreneurs confront competing tensions within three intersecting political economy logics: the structural logic of the economy, the logic of development narratives, and the logic of socio-economic organisation.

Appraising entrepreneurship in Qatar under a gender perspective

“…Despite differences among gender, women’s contribution to employment, innovation and economic growth in all economic stages has been upward (Kelley et al , 2017). The relevance of studying gender and entrepreneurship has been supported by several studies (Giménez and Calabrò, 2018; Ennis, 2018; Cabrera and Mauricio, 2017; Henry et al , 2017) because there is evidence that gender plays a relevant role in individual propensity to enterprise (Gupta and Bhawe, 2007). According to the last GEM Report, (which covers 49 economies), there are seven female entrepreneurs for every ten male entrepreneurs in the world, and only six countries have equal rates of entrepreneurial activity (starting a business) between women and men (Bosma and Kelley, 2019; p. 11), namely, two in the East and South Asia region (Indonesia and Thailand), one in Latin America (Panama) and three in the Middle East and Africa region (Qatar, Madagascar and Angola).…”

“…Challenges on resource dependence and innovation allied to global economic pressures are affecting all GCC countries and, as a result, they are strongly committed to entrepreneurship strategies to uphold employment, private sector initiative, innovation and diversification strategies (Ennis, 2018).…”

Entrepreneurial initiative in Islamic economics – the role of gender. A multi-country analysis

“…Despite differences among gender, women’s contribution to employment, innovation and economic growth in all economic stages has been upward (Kelley et al , 2017). The relevance of studying gender and entrepreneurship has been supported by several studies (Giménez and Calabrò, 2018; Ennis, 2018; Cabrera and Mauricio, 2017; Henry et al , 2017), as there is evidence that gender plays a relevant role in the individual propensity to enterprise (Gupta and Bhawe, 2007). According to the last GEM Report, (which covers 49 economies), there are 7 female entrepreneurs for every 10 male entrepreneurs in the world and only 6 countries have equal rates of entrepreneurial activity (starting a business) between women and men (Bosma and Kelley, 2019; p. 11); namely, two in the East and South Asia region (Indonesia and Thailand), one in Latin America (Panama) and three in the Middle East and Africa region (Qatar, Madagascar and Angola).…”

“Bitten by the entrepreneur bug” – critiquing discourses on women owner-managers/entrepreneurs in the Kenyan and Omani newspapers

“…As a result, compared to other countries in the Gulf, women in Oman joined the workforce in large numbers (Belwal and Belwal, 2014). The female labor force participation in Oman rose from 7.6% in 1980 to 30% in 2016 (Ennis, 2019).…”