Debate: Reaching women's economic independence through entrepreneurship and self-employment
Date: MONDAY, 2 MAY 2022
Speaker: Janusz Wojciechowski
Language: EN

The European Commission is well aware that the gender gap in entrepreneurship has been lessening way too slowly over the past years. It is also known that woman entrepreneurs are more likely to operate smaller businesses or on a part-time basis, to have fewer employees and lower levels of financial literacy.  Clearly, gender stereotypes still pose significant barriers to women’s entrepreneurship. Further, in order to encourage women to access the labour market or to be self-employed, we need to ensure the implementation of the Work-Life Balance Directive; accessible and quality childcare needs to be available in all Member States. Through its entrepreneurship policy, driven by the Green Deal, the SME strategy, the new skills agenda and the digital education action plan, the European Commission is doing its utmost to accelerate and deepen the shift towards a more balanced world for entrepreneurship.  In accordance with the Commission’s gender equality strategy 2020-2025, the SME strategy emphasises that educational and upskilling activities are essential for all SME managers and employees, with a particular focus on empowering women and girls to become founders.  Several projects on entrepreneurship education founded by the EU programme for the competitiveness of enterprises and small and medium—sized enterprises and the single market programme are being implemented on the ground with the aim, for example, to promote competencies, role models, improve access to network and mentoring. Regarding access to funding, the Commission is currently negotiating with the European Investment Bank Group a gender-smart financing initiative under the InvestEU programme. The goal here is to provide financial incentives to female businesses, business angels and support gender investment strategies. In terms of learning opportunities, there is a clear deficit of women in information and communication technologies and in science, technologies, engineering and mathematics. According to the OECD programmes for international student assessment, boys and girls are almost equally likely to work in a science-related field. However, with age and at higher levels of education, girls tend to steer away from the STEM and ICT subjects and are more likely to choose careers in the social and environmental sciences, as they perceive the former to be less people-oriented and to add less value to society.  To address this complex reality, the Commission has put in place a series of STEM festivals, a project that is supporting girls and women to enhance their digital and entrepreneurial competencies to create value and solve social challenges in different economic sectors.  Last but not least, with the support of the European Parliament pilot project, the Commission is putting in place learning support for entrepreneurs facing the challenges for going green and digital. The e-learning platform will give entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs the opportunity to learn and acquire entrepreneurial digital and sustainable competencies. Here also a special section will be dedicated to the needs of women entrepreneurs.  The latest project is a token of the Commission and Parliament’s shared willingness to work alongside to help women overcome all these barriers. Your own-initiative report clearly paves the way for the European Union, where women’s entrepreneurship will finally be perceived as what it truly is: a catalyst for a more prosperous and fairer society.