Does National Gender Equality Matter? Gender Difference in the Relationship between Entrepreneurial Human Capital and Entrepreneurial Intention

Hyewon Kong,Hyosun Kim

doi:10.3390/su14020928

Abstract

Gender equality contributes to economic growth and social progress by promoting women’s social and economic participation. The national gender equality level can affect women’s education and opportunities for economic participation. In this work, we examine whether entrepreneurial human capital (entrepreneurial education and experience) affects entrepreneurial intention and whether these relationships depend on gender and a country’s gender equality level. We used Global Entrepreneurship Trend Report (GETR) data provided by the Korean Entrepreneurship Foundation. The global survey was conducted by the Korean National Statistical Office in 2016. The data were collected from 20 countries, including Korea, and contain at least 2000 individual responses from each country. We used HLM analysis with the HLM 6.0 program to examine the hypotheses. Our results show that entrepreneurship education increases entrepreneurial intention, and that the relationship is stronger among women than men. We also found that for women, the positive relationship between entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial intention is stronger in countries with lower gender equality. As for prior entrepreneurial experience, neither gender nor national gender equality level moderated the relationship between experience and entrepreneurial intention. This study contributes to the extension of entrepreneurship theory, especially in the area of women entrepreneurship. We confirm that entrepreneurial human capital contributes to entrepreneurial intention, and that gender and national gender equality level comprise an important social context that influences the effects of education and experience on the entrepreneurial intention of women.

Highlights

IntroductionWomen entrepreneurship has drawn attention from many researchers around the world, coupled with economic growth, employment diversity, and gender equality issues [1] is the number of woman entrepreneurs still low compared to man entrepreneurs in most countries [2], but women’s entrepreneurial intention is lower than men’s [3,4]
Women entrepreneurship has drawn attention from many researchers around the world, coupled with economic growth, employment diversity, and gender equality issues [1] is the number of woman entrepreneurs still low compared to man entrepreneurs in most countries [2], but women’s entrepreneurial intention is lower than men’s [3,4].Entrepreneurial human capital is crucial in entrepreneurial processes [5,6]
The results showed that entrepreneurial education positively affected entrepreneurial intention (β = 0.315, p < 0.001)

Summary

Introduction

Women entrepreneurship has drawn attention from many researchers around the world, coupled with economic growth, employment diversity, and gender equality issues [1] is the number of woman entrepreneurs still low compared to man entrepreneurs in most countries [2], but women’s entrepreneurial intention is lower than men’s [3,4]. Entrepreneurial human capital is crucial in entrepreneurial processes [5,6]. Human capital, such as experience and education, can affect entrepreneurial intention. Showed that entrepreneurship education positively affects entrepreneurship intention. Entrepreneurial experience may help entrepreneurs identify business opportunities [8] because it leads to entrepreneurial knowledge and skills that can be applied to entrepreneurial activities [9].

Methods

Results

Conclusion