Female Entrepreneurship in Turkey : Patterns, Characteristics, and Trends

Okten, Cagla

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: women entrepreneurs;    female labor force participation;    small and medium-sized enterprises;    SME development;    microfinance;   

RP-ID  :  102013

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Over a century ago, Schumpeter (1911)described the entrepreneur as a creative, driven individualwho finds new combinations of (factors) of production todevelop a new product, corner a new market, or design a newtechnology and he famously attributed endogenous developmentto the creative acts associated with entrepreneurialactivity. This paper contributes to the understanding offemale entrepreneurship in Turkey by analyzing the patternsand characteristics of female entrepreneurs and examiningtime trends in entrepreneurial activity. The data onentrepreneurs comes from data on employers and own accountworkers available in nationally representative Turkishhousehold labor force surveys of 2004-2012. In Turkey, shareof self-employed was 38 percent of total employment in 2012,much higher than the European Union (EU) - 27 average of 15percent. However, the composition of self-employed in Turkeyis markedly different than in EU-27. Only 13 percent ofself-employed in Turkey are employers in contrast to 28percent of self-employed in EU-27. This study is the firstanalyzing the effects of socio-demographic characteristicssuch as education, marital status, number of children, andurban or rural location on gender gap in entrepreneurship inTurkey. A multinomial logistic model was used where the oddsof being an employer or own account worker over beinginactive and unemployed was analyzed. It is found thathigher education reduces the gender gap while marriage andnumber of children increases the gender gap inentrepreneurship. Perhaps surprisingly, living in an urbanarea also increases the gender gap as it increases the oddsof becoming an employer for males and decreases the odds forfemales. The first section gives introduction. The sectionsection deals with a brief literature survey on gender gapin entrepreneurial activity and entrepreneurcharacteristics. In section three, the entrepreneurshipsetting for women in Turkey is described. Section fourdescribes the data and methodology. Section five presents results.