Entrepreneurship Policies through a Gender Lens

Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

By Joan Ballantine, Ulster University

Pauric McGowan, Ulster University

Background

Northern Ireland continues to lag behind the majority of the other regions of the United Kingdom (UK) in terms of entrepreneurship activity rates. The early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) rate1 was 6.5% in 2018, relative to an overall TEA rate for the UK of 8.7% (9.1% in England, 6.3% in Wales and 6.7% in Scotland) (Department for the Economy, 2018). When the TEA rate is disaggregated by gender, women in Northern Ireland appear to be half as likely to be new entrepreneurs as men (4.3% vs. 8.7%). Furthermore, there are significant differences in future start-up expectations in Northern Ireland by gender. Nearly 8% of men indicate that they intend to start a business in the next three years compared with only 2.3% of women (Hart et al., 2017).

Policy issue: The absence of a dedicated women’s entrepreneurship policy

The above statistics point to a key policy issue for Northern Ireland, namely women are less likely than men to be entrepreneurs in the region. This finding is consistent with that previously reported for other regions and countries (OECD, 2017). A potential explanation is the absence of a dedicated policy on women’s entrepreneurship. This is despite evidence, albeit limited, suggesting that women entrepreneurs face a number of specific challenges in Northern Ireland when compared to men counterparts: balancing work and family, non-supportive partners and low levels of confidence (McGowan et al., 2012). A lack of self-efficacy has also been identified as an additional challenge for women entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland, which negatively impacts on the development of their social capital (networking) (Hampton, 2018).

In another study of Northern Irish women owners of small to medium-sized accountancy practices (SMP), Hegarty et al. (2018) report that networking is gender-sensitive. Women participants indicated that confidence was a particular challenge in networking interactions, which were described as intimidating and dominated by men.

Despite lower rates of women’s entrepreneurial activity and evidence that women entrepreneurs face a number of challenges, there is no dedicated policy on women’s entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland. Women’s entrepreneurship does not receive much visibility in key regional entrepreneurship policy documents. For example, the Economy 2030 consultation paper (Department for the Economy, 2017), which outlines proposals for a new Industrial Strategy for Northern Ireland, only briefly refers to women in the context of supporting a new region-wide women’s entrepreneurship initiative - the “Yes You Can” programme. With financial support from the Department for the Economy, the “Yes You Can” programme is the result of collaboration between the Local Government sector (comprising eleven Super Councils), Invest Northern Ireland and the Women in Business Network. Encompassing a series of events (e.g. training sessions, networking meetings, bootcamps) at different stages of a woman’s entrepreneurial journey, including access to women’s networks, the programme has been specifically tailored to support women entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland. The Draft Programme for Government Framework 2016-21 (Northern Ireland Executive, 2016) is also relatively silent on the issue of women’s entrepreneurship, while the Department for the Economy’s Entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland context paper (2018) briefly suggests that a key attribute of entrepreneurship on which Northern Ireland can build is the growing global “culture of female entrepreneurship” (p.8). Interestingly, the context paper does not elaborate on how Northern Ireland might build on this attribute to bring about gains for women entrepreneurs in the region.

Conclusions and recommendations

The lack of attention toward women’s entrepreneurship in key regional policy documents has been criticised by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) (2017). While welcoming the commitment of the Department for Economy to the “Yes You Can” programme, the ECNI has highlighted the lack of reference to the promotion of equality of opportunity for women, particularly in the Economy 2030 strategy. Reflecting this gap, the ECNI recommend the “inclusion of additional stronger high-level commitments, underpinned by robust actions, specifically relating to the promotion of equality [for females]” (p.5). Similarly, the ECNI (2017) is critical of the Draft Programme for Government Framework 2016-21, recommending the need for equality of opportunity (particularly for women) as central to all public policy development and implementation. Based on their analysis of both the Economy 2030 strategy and the Draft Programme for Government Framework 2016-21, the ECNI (2017) recommend the adoption of a gender-sensitive approach to identifying key actions and “additional scope for the promotion of equality to be embedded and mainstreamed” (p.1).

Recommendations for Northern Ireland, UK

• Articulate a regional women’s entrepreneurship policy strategy involving a package of actions to address barriers faced by women entrepreneurs.

• Conduct robust equality assessment (i.e. screening and equality impact assessment) on all entrepreneurship support programmes to ensure equality of opportunity for women.

• Further develop the evidence base on specific issues faced by women entrepreneurs, including collection of gender-disaggregated data on participants in public entrepreneurship support programmes.

References

Department for the Economy (2018), “Entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland Context Paper”, www.economy-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/economy/Entrepreneurship-in-Northern-Ireland-context-paper.pdf.

Department for the Economy (2017), “Economy 2030: A consultation on an Industrial Strategy in Northern Ireland”, https://www.economy-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/consultations/economy/industrial-strategy-ni-consultation-document.pdf.

Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (2017), “Response to the Department for the Economy’s consultation on Economy 2030: An Industrial Strategy for Northern Ireland”, www.equalityni.org/ECNI/media/ECNI/Consultation%20Responses/2017/DeptEcon-DraftIndustrialStrategy.pdf.

Hampton, A. (2018), “The role of self-efficacy in developing women’s social capital for entrepreneurial formation and growth in Northern Ireland”, in Ballantine, J. and P. McGowan (eds.) Women into Business in Northern Ireland: Opportunities and Challenges, p. 9-24, www.businessfirstonline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/REPORT-Women-into-Business-in-Northern-Ireland-Final.pdf.

Hart, M., K. Bonner, J. Levie and L. Henry (2017), “GEM UK: Northern Ireland Report 2017”, www.economy-ni.gov.uk/publications/global-entrepreneurship-monitor-gem-uk-ni-report-2017.

Hegarty, C., C. Barrett and C. Scott McAteer (2018), “Women as networkers: a study of the practices of women owners of small to medium accountancy practices (SMPs) in Northern Ireland”, in Ballantine, J. and P. McGowan (eds.) Women into Business in Northern Ireland: Opportunities and Challenges, p. 25-39, www.businessfirstonline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/REPORT-Women-into-Business-in-Northern-Ireland-Final.pdf.

McGowan, P., C. L. Redeker, S. Y. Cooper and K. Greenan (2012), “Female entrepreneurship and the management of business and domestic roles: Motivations, expectations and realities”, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Vol. 24, No. 1-2, pp. 53-72.

Northern Ireland Executive (2016), “Draft Programme for Government Framework 2016-21”, www.northernireland.gov.uk/sites/default/files/consultations/newnigov/draft-pfg-framework-2016-21.pdf.

OECD (2017), The Pursuit of Gender Equality: An Uphill Battle, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264281318-en.