Female Entrepreneurship: Evolution, Current Challenges, and Future Prospects

Abstract

The current paper presents reflections on female entrepreneurship through a history of its development, characteristics, gender dichotomy, we also discuss the insertion of women in the business sector in different regional, cultural, economic, and social contexts. The article evaluates an evolution of entrepreneurship since colonial times, and describes it over the last decades, addressing barriers, dynamic potential, possibilities, challenges, and trends. As a methodological approach, we verified the academic literature through database searches, such as Capes, SPELL, EBSCO HOST, and Google Scholar. The abundance of recent studies carried out in different countries made it possible to explain the subject comprehensively. It is clear from the study that since ancient times, women fought for their spaces with many achievements. However, much more remains to be discussed and rethought to value, emerge, and support the development and growth of female entrepreneurship, as In this field remain open challenges to overcome. Both evolution and trends for female entrepreneurship are related to the cultural dimensions of institutional collectivism, gender egalitarianism, social awareness, and women's empowerment, as they shift through family structures and traditions. As an academic contribution this study presents the main context factors and characteristics of female entrepreneurship, discussed in the literature. In practice, the article helps to explain to entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs about the challenges that can be overcome through training and qualification, but also presents the barriers imposed by the market that depend on collective actions and government policies, which propose to discuss the culture and gender bias.