Title: Do self-employment determinants have a gender at the macro level? A panel analysis of OECD countries

Authors: Brahim Gaies; Adnane Maalaoui; Léo-Paul Dana

Addresses: IPAG Lab – IPAG Business School, 184 Boulevard Saint-Germain, 75006 Paris, France ' IPAG Lab – IPAG Business School, 184 Boulevard Saint-Germain, 75006 Paris, France ' ICD Business School, Paris, France

Abstract: This study investigates whether female self-employment at the country level is similarly or differently impacted by the same factors as is male self-employment. In order to determine these factors, we referred to three major theories explaining the entrepreneurship determinants at the macro level, namely institutional theory, eclectic theory and gender theory. The hypotheses arising from this theoretical framework are tested on the basis of a panel data analysis for the 36 OECD countries over the period 2000-2014. Our analysis reveals that while certain factors (social perception of entrepreneurship, economic development and gender equality in nascent entrepreneurship) play the same role at the national level with regard to female and male self-employment, other factors (unemployment and normative support for entrepreneurship) have a different influence.

Keywords: women entrepreneurship; applied entrepreneurship in macroeconomics; panel data; generalised least squares; GLS; panel regression model; opportunity discovery; gender gap.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2023.133488

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2023 Vol.50 No.2, pp.194 - 217

Received: 07 Mar 2020
Accepted: 16 Jul 2020
Published online: 18 Sep 2023 *

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