engleski

Women empowerment in a time of global crisis:Opportunities and challenges

Global economic crisis represents a great challenge, which is imposed on every economy striving to sustain its competitive advantage and improve the quality of life of its citizens. Although there are plenty of documents, strategies and policies that focus on alleviation of the effects of the crisis, they very often neglect the importance and influence of the sector that constitutes 1/3 of world entrepreneurial activities – women entrepreneurship. Women represent an increasingly important component of every economy's image, but the support for this sector largely depends on the development and stability of each country. According to GEM 2006 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship, low/medium income countries record higher percentage of entrepreneurial activities among women (especially in early-stage entrepreneurship) than it is the case in high income countries. The reason for this is that majority of women in low/medium income countries get involved in starting their own business because of necessity – unemployment, poverty or underpayment. In those countries, women do not lag far behind men regarding generation of business ideas and perceiving and exploiting business opportunities. Still, the possibility of establishing a business venture is decreased due to limited access to financial resources, insufficient support in organizing their personal lives, as well as the deep-rooted prejudice that starting one's own business is not a suitable career for women. Therefore, the decision to choose such a career, especially in times of uncertainty and complexity caused by the global economic crisis, still largely depends on their lifestyle, family support, access to resources and government incentives. High income countries, such as Germany, respond to that need by establishing a wide network of institutions and organizations in order to alleviate prejudices and create policies and instruments that will support the development of women entrepreneurship. Although recently there have been significant improvements in Croatia in recognizing women entrepreneurship as an important component in economic development, the potential of this sector is still not sufficiently utilized.

global economic crisis ; women entrepreneurship ; policies and instruments for supporting women entrepreneurship

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