An important topic on the entrepreneurship research agenda is gender differences between men and women entrepreneurs. There is growing awareness that, for a variety of reasons, women face different opportunities and constraints in entrepreneurship from men; and that these considerations affect their participation and performance in entrepreneurship. As with ethnic minority entrepreneurship, there has been a concern that women's prospects in entrepreneurship might be shaped by discrimination. Discrimination in the workplace might promote entrepreneurship among women in an effort to escape it, while discrimination against women by lenders might impede entrepreneurship by restricting access to finance.

This chapter has the following structure. The first section describes some basic facts about female entrepreneurship, starting with cross-country evidence about its prevalence and some descriptive findings about gender differences in industry composition and personal characteristics. The second section explains how family factors bear on female entrepreneurship, including marriage, household production and child-rearing. The third section is devoted to the performance of women entrepreneurs, in absolute terms and relative to men. A gender performance gap is identified, and several potential explanations are discussed. The fourth section briefly treats the subject of women and entrepreneurial finance. The final section concludes.

Some basic facts about female entrepreneurship

Whether entrepreneurship is defined in terms of new venture creation, business ownership or self-employment, a higher proportion of men than women engage in entrepreneurship in all developed economies, despite a recent trend increase in female entrepreneurship in many of them.