Paving the way for women entrepreneurs, a pending task for developed countries

About a third of entrepreneurs are women. That’s what the statistics from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2015 study indicate. There’s still a long way to go for this figure to be equal to that of male entrepreneurs, but it’s clear that there have been significant improvements in recent decades. It should be noted that in industrialized societies women were only recently allowed to join the labor market. But that shouldn’t obscure the important goal we should be setting for the current year, the goal that women finally become fully incorporated into the world of entrepreneurship.

Profile of a woman entrepreneur

In economies like Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Peru and Indonesia the number of female entrepreneurs is equal to or greater than that of male entrepreneurs. These countries are the exception, though, especially when it comes to ICT entrepreneurship, a sector in which in inclusion of women is still low.

But this situation’s days are numbered for a simple reason, beyond efforts of governments making it easier for women to startup in ICT, today the number of college women in European countries exceeds that of men by a 60%-40% average. Higher levels of education and training mean more likelihood that these women will become entrepreneurs. So within the next couple of decades we’re should expect to see the number of female entrepreneurs grow significantly.

However, there is still an important barrier for women to fully enter the world of entrepreneurship: the balance between work and family life. It’s nothing new, for years European Union economies have been trying to improve working hours and to offer social policies that make it so having children is not an impediment- neither for men or women- to pursue a career, or in this case, to start a business.

And this is where the debate begins. What should institutions be doing to improve the incorporation of women in entrepreneurship? How could work and family life be better balanced? Participate with your comments and win some great prizes!