Rich Countries Produce Fewer Female Entrepreneurs

According to a study carried out in 51 countries and territories by the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association, female entrepreneurs are especially common in middle income nations like Ecuador, Guatemala, Jordan and Thailand as well as in developed country Saudi Arabia.

High income countries in the Americas, for example Canada, Chile and the United States, also performed better than their European and East Asian peers. Many developed nations in Europe have very low rates of female entrepreneurs, according to the study, as do some countries in Asia. On the latter continent, lower-income as well as high-income nations are seeing fewer female founders on average.

Entrepreneurial activity in low and middle income nations is sometimes called necessity-driven entrepreneurship, which can be caused by a lack of formal employment opportunities in a country, while in developed nations, innovation-driven entrepreneurialism coexists with well-developed formal job markets. Yet, within both types of economies, big differences exist between the rates of female entrepreneurs. While 32 percent of adult women are engaged in entrepreneurial activity in Ecuador and around 20 percent are starting their own businesses in Jordan, fewer women are entrepreneurs in other middle income countries like Egypt (2.6 percent) or China (4.9 percent).

Some European countries fare extraordinarily badly, with Poland (2.3 percent) having the lowest rate of female entrepreneurship in the ranking ahead of aforementioned Egypt and China as well as Romania (3.7 percent) and Hungary (4.9 percent). Compared to other middle income countries, India only registered a low-ish rate of around 10.3 percent female entrepreneurs - just slightly ahead of Germany and South Korea. However, the gap between the sexes tend to be smaller in developing country than in developed ones, where 50 to 100 percent more males are entrepreneurs than females.

A closer gap in male and female entrepreneurs can however also point to less equality in the job market. In South Korea, a country with a very traditional corporate culture, female entrepreneurship rates have soared recently as a response to unequal career opportunities for women. This factor could also play a role in traditional Muslim nations, like those on the Gulf, registering more female entrepreneurs.