Female entrepreneurship in emerging economies: what is the reality in Africa?

Abstract

In emerging economies in general and in African countries in particular, women's entrepreneurship today represents an important engine of economic growth. Indeed, it plays a major role in reducing unemployment and poverty, but also in gender equality. In recent years, several authors have addressed the issue of female entrepreneurship in the world, however, through our extensive research we note that there are few studies and works that have been conducted on the situation of women entrepreneurs in emerging or developing countries, especially in Africa, while knowing that the dynamics of emerging economies differ from those of developed countries. Thus, the objective of this work is to draw up a state of the art of female entrepreneurship in emerging economies, and in particular in African countries, during these last years, while trying to bring some answers to the following problem: "What is the state of the art of female entrepreneurship in Africa? The results of this study reveal the profiles and characteristics of women entrepreneurs in Africa, their main motivations, notably economic, social and personal, as well as the internal and external challenges and obstacles they encounter in their experience. This work also calls for more research on this topic as it will provide more information and help to better understand the phenomenon. It also provides future research directions for studying this phenomenon in emerging economies generally.

Key words:  Entrepreneurship; women; Africa

JEL classification: L26

Paper type : Theoretical Research