Within the firm, women assume roles as entrepreneurs, board members, senior managers, or self- employed professionals. However, as entrepreneurs, depending upon the country, women can face regulations that bar them from competing, e.g. preventing them from registering a business, or from owning land or wealth, or from accessing the necessary credit to finance entry or expansion of their enterprise within the market (Smith et al., 2009[3]).
Regulations constraining women’s access to specific professions or markets are primarily detrimental for the women involved and a waste of their potential economic contribution to the wealth and productivity of their community. Such regulations are also actively damaging to competition and the efficiency of markets and may provide opportunities for incumbent firms to charge higher prices for all consumers. Markets may still appear to be competitive if less efficient male entrepreneurs can fill the gaps left by these competitive distortions. However, these entrepreneurs will themselves offer less value and will also provide a weaker competitive constraint on more efficient firms, giving those firms greater market power that may allow them to devalue their offer or raise prices. These rules are amongst the types of anti-competitive regulations that can be identified by the OECD’s Competition Assessment Toolkit.
Other disincentives and restrictions may not be written down in regulations and may therefore be more difficult to dismantle. Women may face barriers to joining professional networks or clubs. Banks may consider them riskier borrowers. Women could face negative pressure or disincentives to pursue professional careers in STEM disciplines,1 law, or other traditionally male‑dominated fields. They may also be disadvantaged by the lack of infrastructure required when starting a business, for example, access to professional childcare or other solutions.
