Entrepreneurial women and men: Two different species?

The ability of the self-employed to create additional job opportunities is a fundamental concern given the huge increases in public resources targeted at new venture creation in the U.K. and other countries since 1979. This s tudy initially concentrates on identifying differences in the personal and demographic characteristics of women and men in four potential labour marke t states, namely; unemployment; waged employment; single self- employment, and; job creating self-employment. It then goes on to consider labour marke t transitions over a four year period between 1991 and 1995. The key findin gs are firstly that women entrepreneurs are better educated than their male counterparts and secondly that flows into self- employment were considerab ly higher for men than women. Furthermore, proportionately, three times as many male self- employed in 1991 had gone on to become job creating self-em ployed by 1995.