Preferences in Self-Employment and Entrepreneurship in the Republic of Serbia: Gender Analysis
Preferences in Self-Employment and Entrepreneurship in the Republic of Serbia: Gender Analysis

Summary/Abstract: Participation of women in enterpreneurial activity is lower than in men. The gender gap in entrepreneurial preferences may be affected by a large number of very different factors. This study is focused on examining the impact of a large number of different factors on preferences of women and men towards entrepreneurship. The aim of this study was to identify the factors that have a dominant influence on the preferences of men and women towards entrepreneurship, and to propose measures that may increase entrepreneurial tendencies and entrepreneurship development. The initial assumption of this paper was that the preferences of women towards entrepreneurship is lower than the preferences of men, that the dominant influence on gender gap is the women’s great aversion to risk, as well as a large number of barriers in capital provision women face as compared to men. The analysis was conducted on a sample of 1,000 people in Serbia. The study had two phases. In the first phase, we identified seven factors which have the greatest impact on the preferences of the population towards entrepreneurship. Then, using the methods of logistic regression, we analysed the influence of each of them to entrepreneurial preferences. It was shown that the greatest and statistically significant impact on the gender gap in the entrepreneurial preferences of the population in Serbia are the following factors: different possibilities of women and men in obtaining a startup capital, different opportunities for women and men in finding jobs, different risk appetites of women and men and a greater burden on women's family responsibilities.

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