The participation of women in the world of entrepreneurship has increased significantly in recent decades. More and more women are starting and leading their own businesses successfully. However, there are still certain gender inequalities and some countries have more female entrepreneurs than others.
Women entrepreneurs have long fought for equality in the business world. But, in the last decade, the gender gap has narrowed significantly, and in some countries, women lead the business scene.
According to a survey carried out by Statista in 2019, the main motivation for entrepreneurship that was most mentioned in the percentage of women interviewed in Latin America and the Caribbean was the challenge and personal passion, both for entrepreneurs in areas STEM (science, engineering, technology and mathematics), as well as for other areas. In the case of the women surveyed who started in STEM fields, the second most avoided reason was the desire to solve urgent problems in their communities and countries. For its part, the motivation with the second highest percentage of mentions for the surveyed entrepreneurs with businesses in non-STEM areas was the aspiration to achieve economic independence.
Graphic of the day: In which countries are there more women entrepreneurs?
According to a study carried out by the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association in 49 countries, it was found that America latin It is the region with the highest proportion of women who dare to start their own businesses. Most of the countries with the highest female participation in entrepreneurship are in Latin America. Proof of this is that almost 30 percent of Guatemalan women between the ages of 18 and 64 are in the initial stage of establishing their own business, that is, in the first 3.5 years of their business life. While in Colombia, this proportion rises to more than 26 percent and in Chile to 25 percent.
On the other hand, the study also showed that other countries with more developed economies, such as Japan, Spain or Germany, have very low rates of female entrepreneurs, all of them with proportions of less than 10 percent. This seems to be a common trend, as more advanced economies tend to have lower rates of female entrepreneurship due to the presence of a greater number of job options, as well as higher levels of competition between companies, factors that make the difference and that can make the project of founding your own company less attractive since basically there is no need to do it as in other territories.