Empowering High Impact Female Entrepreneurs and Stimulating Economic Growth in the Caribbean by Reducing the Social Costs to Women Entrepreneurs

Problem Statement: Women’s share of entrepreneurship in the English-Speaking Caribbean (ESC) is below that of more-advanced nations, with female entrepreneurs accounting for only 8% of the total workforce. Women entrepreneurs in the ESC also have smaller firms than their male counterparts. Of the estimated 228,000 self-employed women in the ESC, 204,000 (89.5%) have no employees, and only 3,000 (1.3%) have progressed beyond the micro-business stage—with small, medium, or large enterprises (SMLEs) that employ ˃5 persons.
Objective: This study sought to understand the characteristics of the few women with established SMLEs (i.e., (˃3.5 years old) and how they transcended the obstacles to female entrepreneurship to become successful, with the goal of informing and improving gender mainstreaming initiatives that aim to increase ESC women entrepreneurs’ chances of success in scaling-up their businesses.
Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 35 Afro-Caribbean women from Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados (14, 10 and 11 interviewees, respectively) who owned established SMLEs.