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Gendered Institutions and Cross-National Patterns of Business Creation for Men and Women

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Abstract

In this article, we explore how gendered entrepreneurship rates are affected by both soft (values, beliefs and expectations) and hard (institutionalized norms and practices) measures of cultural institutions. We use data from the 2001 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 25 265 individuals in 11 countries to examine how institutional arrangements related to women's employment (role of occupational segregation, gender wage inequality, female business leadership and public childcare support) interact with individual-level perceptions in ways that increase women's start-up. Controlling for national variations in opportunity structure, our results show that gendered institutions (female business leadership, gender wage inequality and public expenditures on childcare) influence the decision to start a business indirectly through perceptions and gender.

Dans cet article, nous examinons comment les taux d’entreprenariat féminin sont influencés par les institutions culturelles tant ‘douces’ (valeurs, croyances, attentes) que ‘dures’ (normes et pratiques institutionnalisées). Nous utilisons des données tirées de l’enquête Global Entrepreneurship Monitor de 2001 conduite sur 25 265 individus dans 11 pays différents afin de déterminer comment les arrangements institutionnels concernant le travail des femmes (rôle de la ségrégation professionnelle des femmes, les inégalités de salaires entre hommes et femmes, le leadership féminin en entreprise, les programmes publics d’accueil des enfants) influencent les perceptions individuelles de telles façons qu’elles augmentent le nombre de startups de femmes. En contrôlant les variations de structure d’opportunités qui existent entre les différents pays, nous montrons que les institutions (le leadership féminin en entreprise, les inégalités de salaires entre hommes et femmes, et les dépenses publiques consacrées à l’accueil des enfants ) influencent indirectement – à travers des perceptions concernant les sexes – la décision de créer une entreprise.

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Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article appears in the BCERC 2007 Foundations of Entrepreneurship Research proceedings. We thank Per Davidsson, Mike Peng, Roxanne Zolin and participants at the 2007 BCERC, 2007 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and 2008 UNU-WIDER conferences for helpful feedback.

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Elam, A., Terjesen, S. Gendered Institutions and Cross-National Patterns of Business Creation for Men and Women. Eur J Dev Res 22, 331–348 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2010.19

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