Gender Inequality: Entrepreneurship Development in the MENA Region

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is increasingly popular among policy makers worldwide to promote and achieve economic development and growth. However, entrepreneurship rates differ from one country to another, and particularly the number of women entrepreneurs is still significantly lower than the number of male entrepreneurs in many contexts. In the present paper, we critically assess how country measures of gender inequality shape men and women’s entrepreneurial intentions, which were shown in literature to be excellent predictors of the establishment of new ventures. We analyze the direct and moderating effects of gender inequality on important individual-level antecedents of entrepreneurial intention. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) identified gender inequality as a key contributor to the loss of human development and declared “gender equality” as a sustainable development goal (SDG) in the UN 2030 agenda. Our research draws on the gender inequality index and GEM data from nine Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries. Our results show that a culture of inequality leads to limited entrepreneurial behavior by both men and women in a population.