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Introduction to Iranian Entrepreneurship Read chapter Read first chapter

2017 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Women’s Entrepreneurship in Iran

Authors : Zahra Arasti, Neda Bahmani

Published in: Iranian Entrepreneurship

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Women account for half of the population in Iran, but in the last five years, the number of employed women has dropped by 14.2%, resulting in total women’s unemployment rate of 19.8%. According to the 2015 World Economic Forum report, Iran is among the countries with a high gender gap in economy ranking 141 in terms of women’s economic participation among the 145 countries. In the other hand, women’s entrepreneurship does not seem to be enjoying an appropriate status in Iran and despite increased entrepreneurial activities by women, the ratio of businesses run by women to business run by their male counterparts are 2–10. Both contextual and structural factors influence entrepreneurial process; some are strengthening and some others are debilitating. So, if women and entrepreneurship are two important factors for growth especially in developing countries, it is particularly noticeable to understand what factors mobilize or prevent them from starting new businesses. The main contribution of this study are helping better recognition and understanding of ignored subject of women’s entrepreneurship in Iranian context with distinctive socio-cultural characteristics and its specific requirements.

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next chapter Academic Entrepreneurship Readiness in University of Tehran
Footnotes
1
A northern province in Iran.
 
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Metadata
Title
Women’s Entrepreneurship in Iran
Authors
Zahra Arasti
Neda Bahmani
Copyright Year
2017
Book
Iranian Entrepreneurship

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-50638-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-50639-5

Copyright Year: 2017

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50639-5_7

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