A Gender Perspective on Women and Enterprise

A distinctive pattern of economic inequality marks the female population of every nation, each with the same mechanisms standing behind the disadvantages. Everywhere, the barriers to women’s economic engagement reach beyond work and salary to encompass property ownership, capital, credit, and markets. When considered as a whole, these barriers constitute economic exclusion, not just economic inequality. To date, policy, scholarship, and activism on the economic status of women have tended to focus on inequality in the formal workplace, but the full pattern is much more visible when women-owned businesses are examined.