Women Entrepreneurs: Issues and Barriers - A Regional, National and International Perspective

This report discusses two main issues and barriers pertaining to:

• Women's entrepreneurship and business growth;
• Establishing a network of business support centers for women entrepreneurs.

While discussing the first issue, the paper elaborates the following factors hindering women-headed enterprises:

• Per-start up experiences of the labor market;
• Traditional views on women's role;
• The financing of female-owned firms;
• Use of networks in the management of firms;
• Lack of knowledge and training in business and information technology (IT) skills;
• Low self esteem/perception.

While elaborating the second issue, need for networking support, the paper discusses the following points that need to be taken into consideration:

• Tradition, perception and self-perception;
• Longer incubation period for businesses started by women than by men;
• Different types of networks created for women and men;
• Variations in network usage;
• Inconsistency of current networks to support women entrepreneurs.

The paper further highlights some of barriers that women entrepreneurs face:

• Family obligations;
• Low priority to traditional women set-up enterprises;
• Social barriers;
• Lack of strategy to foster entrepreneurship and overcome barriers;
• Need for research regarding the usability of networks.

The paper concludes by throwing light on some contemporary trends in helping women-owned enterprises reach success.