Incentives and Female Entrepreneurial Activity: Evidence from Panel Firm Level Data

The aim of this paper is to investigate in general the term of entrepreneurial activity and to analyze the incentives of woman’s participation in labor market. Women entrepreneurial activity is closely related to social and economic issues, as women are starting up their businesses, they are developing their innovative business ideas and they are successfully expanding their business activities. They represent a driving force, an active and effective member of economic, political, professional and managerial societies. On the other hand though, they have families with serious maternal responsibilities and inelastic household obligations, roles which they are trying to balance effectively. For that reason specific actions and carefully designed measures are essential in encouraging and promoting them to engage into entrepreneurial activity.
To investigate the issue of entrepreneurial activity, personal characteristics and various motivation incentives are examined in order to determine the major factors that may influence women entrepreneurial spirit in Greece. Thus, obtaining data from 1600 industrial firms, this study makes use of the panel methodology approach to provide evidence about the main determinants of female entrepreneurship.