Entrepreneurship Policies through a Gender Lens

Reader’s guide

What will I learn from this report?

This report contains a collection of 27 policy insight notes on long-running policy issues in women’s entrepreneurship support. Many of these issues have become even more relevant as the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to set women’s entrepreneurship back 20 years. The notes cover a range of policy challenges – including in relation to formal and informal institutions, access to finance, access to skills and policy design – and policy instruments that can be used to address them. The notes underline core principles and good practices to follow in designing and implementing policies.

This report also offers an overview of the state of women’s entrepreneurship in OECD countries and beyond, using gender-disaggregated indicators on business creation, self-employment and barriers to business start-up, sustainability and growth. These indicators illustrate gender gaps in entrepreneurship, not only in activity rates but also in the proportion of entrepreneurs who create jobs for others. Persistent gender gaps call on public policy to continue to address gender inequalities in entrepreneurship.

Overall, the report provides an important source of insights to assist policy makers seeking to strengthen holistic interventions in support of women’s entrepreneurship, and to encourage and facilitate peer learning across countries.

How can I read this report?

While this report can be read linearly, it is designed to also be read in sections, allowing readers to easily identify themes and issues that are of most interest to them, and to access relevant policy insight notes.

The report is structured in two parts. Part I contains two chapters, with the first presenting the main policy messages that emerge from the collection of policy insight notes. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the current state of women’s entrepreneurship internationally, including how activity rates have changed over the past 20 years. It also presents differences in barriers to entrepreneurship by gender across countries.

Part II of the report is composed of a collection of 27 policy insight notes from OECD Member Countries and beyond. These notes are organised around the six pillars of the OECD-EU Better Entrepreneurship Policy Tool (www.betterentrepreneurship.eu), which is designed to support policy makers in the design of their policies for inclusive entrepreneurship (see Table 1).

Table 1. Overview of the focus of the women’s entrepreneurship policy insight notes

Policy area	Note	Policy issue
1. Fostering an inclusive entrepreneurial culture	Australia	Building the pipeline of women entrepreneurs
	Germany	How to change traditional gender role models
	India	Women entrepreneurs’ personal safety
	Iran	The institutional environment
	Turkey	Culture, human capital and education
	United Kingdom	Addressing under-representation of women in innovation
2. Strengthening the design and delivery of women’s entrepreneurship support	Canada	Operationalising the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy
	Czech Republic	Lack of support for women entrepreneurs
	New Zealand	Is there a need for a gendered entrepreneurship policy?
	Northern Ireland (UK)	The absence of a dedicated women’s entrepreneurship policy
	Sweden	Private rather than public welfare delivery does not help women or their businesses
3. Building entrepreneurship skills and capacities for women entrepreneurs	Denmark	Education, self-employment, dual roles and political priorities
	Poland	Skills development, mentoring and networking
	Tanzania	Education, training and entrepreneurial skills development
4. Facilitating access to business finance for women entrepreneurs	Ethiopia	Access to finance
	Ireland	Access to finance
	Italy	Financing women-owned firms
	Mexico	Financial literacy and financial exclusion
	Norway	Access to finance
	South Africa	Access to finance
	Spain	Access to finance
	United States	Access to financial capital
5. Expanding networks for women entrepreneurs	Palestinian Authority	Networks and mentoring
	Scotland (UK)	Creating a gender-focused business support eco-system
6. Building a supportive regulatory environment for women entrepreneurs	Kenya	Access to social protection
	Pakistan	Weak regulatory institutions
	Sri Lanka	Business environment and support

How was this report developed?

The report is the result of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE) and the Global Women’s Entrepreneurship Policy Research Project (Global WEP). The concept of the report was presented and discussed at the annual meeting of the Global WEP project in Birmingham, United Kingdom in November 2018. Network members were invited to prepare short women’s entrepreneurship policy insight notes on a topical issue.

Each note was developed by researchers that work on entrepreneurship policy issues according to a common template provided by the OECD CFE. The policy insight notes subsequently went through a two-stage review process. First, the notes were peer-reviewed within the Global WEP network and then by the OECD CFE. The notes were revised and are presented here around the framework developed by the OECD CFE for the OECD-EU Better Entrepreneurship Policy Tool.