Women Are More Likely To Start Their Own Business

Existing literature states that in comparison to men, women are less likely to start their own business and when or if they do start a business, they follow a different pattern to that of men. Despite the fact that research shows that women are more likely to balance the demands of their lives and cope effectively with challenges of starting a business, women are still tied to traditional gender roles that require majority of their time and effort, which may prevent women from becoming entrepreneurs. Certain cultural practices and traditional attitudes have been reported as factors that may hinder women’s initiative to start a business (Urban, 2010).

In a comparison between male and female entrepreneurs, women are more likely to have a lower start up capital for their business than men, and differences with intent of business start up exist between men and women. Despite certain predictions made about women’s preference of entrepreneurship and degree of entrepreneurial self-efficacy,

It was also found that although women don’t score as high as men do with regards to certain levels of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, they do score higher than men in the innovative and marketing ranking of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (Urban, 2010).

Urban (2010) found that with regards to entrepreneurship, men focused more on financial status and prosperity, whilst women tended to be more concerned with moral principles and satisfaction. Contrary to a common view, women in this study were found to have a high level of entrepreneurial aspirations and regarded themselves as meeting the necessary requirements to become an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy should therefore not be thought of as limited to men, but rather something that is commonly shared amongst both genders (Urban,