Women Entrepreneurship: A Global Perspective

Abstract

The number of women entrepreneurs is increasing all over the world but the entrepreneurial ventures in developing countries are quite low compared to the developed countries. Women entrepreneurship is growing at a faster pace in countries like U.S, U.K and Canada and it is being contemplated that if women continue to grow at the same pace then very soon their percentage will rise to 50 percent. Unfortunately such is not the case in countries like Albania, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zambia and India where women entrepreneurs are growing at a very slow pace. Surprisingly not all developed countries are experiencing high growth in women entrepreneurship and not all developing countries are experiencing slow growth of women entrepreneurship. Finland a developed country is experiencing slow growth rate of women entrepreneurship and Bangladesh a developing country is experiencing high growth rate of women entrepreneurship. It seems that the disparity in growth of women entrepreneurs in various countries is due to the diversity in their perception and socio-economic conditions prevailing in the state. This paper is an attempt to look from a global perspective the characteristics, motivation and problems which women entrepreneurs face and the kind of influence it has on their growth.