Heterogeneity in entrepreneurship in developing countries: Risk, credit, and migration and the entrepreneurial propensity of youth and women

Abstract

Promoting youth and female entrepreneurship is crucial to inclusive growth and the future economic and social prospects of developing countries. Evidence tends to suggest that young and female entrepreneurs are in a minority, and the extent and generating mechanisms of this outcome tend to be country‐specific. This collection of papers brings together recent empirical contributions exploring key drivers of this heterogeneity entrepreneurial propensity of youth and female in the context of a group of countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, paying special attention to the role of and issues relating to access to credit, attitudes to risk, and migratory status. A common thread in all the papers is the effective role of risk, uncertainty, and asymmetric information in the determination of entrepreneurship and in the demand for and allocation of credit when potential entrepreneurs are from specific groups, that is, women, indigenous women, women and youth in conflict and post‐conflict situations, and migrant youth. Based on these results, the papers explore various challenges in the implementation of public policies designed to promote entrepreneurship within these specific segments of the population.

Emprendimiento femenino en América Latina: una aproximación teórica

“…Terjesen & Amorós (2010), Hanson (2009), Villasana et al (2016), Bernat et al (2016), Kuschel et al (2017), Gunewardena & Seck (2020), Molina (2020).…”

“…Con relación a los factores sociales, se encuentran el rol de género, entorno sociocultural (Alecchi, 2020), las redes sociales (Álvarez et al, 2014), la pertenencia a una etnia y religión (Padilla-Meléndez & Ciruela-Lorenzo, 2018), y la migración hacia otras regiones (Gunewardena & Seck, 2020), son aspectos determinantes que impulsan a las mujeres a iniciar un nuevo negocio. En estas investigaciones se menciona generalmente, la discriminación a la que se enfrenta la mujer en la sociedad por querer emprender en cuestiones que están más dadas a los hombres, o por la creencia que si se dedica a otras actividades descuidará su rol principal en la familia como cuidadora del hogar.…”

Haqqani, Nyma; Herrebosch, Nathan; Jackson, Jane; Juma, Ismat; Kanaan, Faten; (2023) Institute for Global Prosperity 2021-22 Master’s Dissertation Special Issue, Part 1

“…Limited research has been done to explore entrepreneurship in fragile and post-conflict contexts (Gölgeci et al, 2021;Kolk & Lenfant, 2015), posing a need to explore entrepreneurship and its different forms in these contexts; not only to draw on what forms of (if any) entrepreneurship exist but to investigate entrepreneurship's potential in helping these regions prosper (Dileni Gunewardena, 2020;Naudé, 2009). Transformative entrepreneurship is not a term that is employed by this sample of articles.…”

“…War impacts the capacity of public and private institutions as it diminishes the power of public institutions in allocating resources and enacting regulations that would improve living standards, provide confidence for investment or engagement of private institutions, and support entrepreneurial efforts toward productive activities and peacebuilding (Catic-Kajtazovic, 2013;Daka & Siad, 2022;Dileni Gunewardena, 2020;Naudé, 2009). Public institutions face the challenge of reestablishing legitimacy as they are required to address pressing social, economic, and political obstacles post-conflict.…”

“…More untapped potentials crucial for inclusive growth are women, youth, and migrants (Dileni Gunewardena, 2020). In a study that focuses on the phenomenon of youth and women entrepreneurs being a minority, Dileni Gunewardena ( 2020) explores what affects the low participation of these groups in a selection of countries across Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.…”