The Rise of Female Entrepreneurship

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to delineate the evolution of female entrepreneurship and it will focus on and analyse two different environments, history and society, and their interrelation. Firstly, the dissertation will delineate the terms “entrepreneurship” and “entrepreneur”, not only providing its current definition, but also illustrating the development of the term itself throughout history, introducing its connotations and the differences among them. This will function as context and foundation of the paper. The noun “Entrepreneur” has French origins and before the 19th century it indicated a person who got up musical performances, while at the end of the century it began to be used in political economy with the meaning of “a person who organizes or manages a business undertaking, assuming the risk for the sake of profit” (Webster's Third New International Dictionary, 1966). Throughout history the definition of this term and the relative concept of entrepreneurship has been subject to different interpretations: Schumpeter believed the entrepreneur to be an innovator, who created new combinations of factors in production and transformed inventions into economic innovations; Cantillon and Knight considered the entrepreneur as a risk taker; Say and Marshall as a business leader; and Kirzner and Casson view entrepreneurship as alertness. Secondly, it will present an analysis of the hard and slow journey of women’s growing access to resources and their gain of power, illustrating the four waves of feminism, women's gain of education, and their role in the paid labour force throughout the years. Moreover, the thesis will highlight a fundamental paradox consisting in the existence of female entrepreneurs since at least the 18th century despite the social and economic environments in which they were embedded, which primarily relegated them to housework; it will then illustrate relevant female entrepreneurs in history, their story and contributions. Although history proves the existence of female entrepreneurs at least since the 18th century, such as Eliza Lucas Pinckney, who produced indigo dye in 1739 and was the first woman inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame in 1989; women have always constituted a small percentage of the entire spectrum of entrepreneurship because of sexism, stereotypes, biases and societal and economic pressures. After the historical aspect, the focus will be placed on the societal environment, explaining the basis of the distinction of gender in entrepreneurship and the relative gender gap that exists worldwide. The thesis will provide a global perspective and analyse how the evolution of female entrepreneurship throughout history has shaped social norms, working and economic opportunities, and the multidimensional phenomenon of entrepreneurship altogether. Although the gender gap in the field of entrepreneurship in constantly narrowing, the inequality in this area is persistent: in 2014 data showed that in Europe women entrepreneurs constituted 29% of entrepreneurs, while in 2017 in the Unites States women-owned firms represented 39% of all businesses. Furthermore, according to the report by The Unilever Foundry in 2018 found that 4 in 10 female business founders say they frequently encountered gender bias whilst running their start-up, and 42% believed that gender discrimination would stay the same as they scale up. The the ideology of femininity and the social conventions concerning the types of work considered appropriate for women have led to the formation of fundamental discriminations between men and women in several areas: family, work, education.