Three reasons women start fewer businesses than men
Despite their comparatively higher educational attainment and wealth, Western women were far less likely to start a businesses than women in emerging economies, in part because stronger private sectors in developed nations make the temptation to remain an employee hard to resist.
Researchers surveyed 90,000 women in 59 countries and regions on how they feel about the prospect of starting and running a business. The percent of entrepreneurs that were female varied from 16 percent in South Korea to 55 percent in Ghana — the only economy with more female than male entrepreneurs. In the United States, nearly half of entrepreneurs are women.
The report split the world’s economies into three types: factors-driven, which are in the early stages of development, efficiency-driven, where industrialization has taken hold, and innovation-driven, which move toward knowledge based and service businesses.
Out of the innovation-driven economies (which are mostly in Europe, North America or Asia), women in the United States felt the most capable of starting a business, but those in Sweden had the most entrepreneurial intentions. Those in Japan and Korea had the least entrepreneurial attitudes.