Women’s business ownership and women’s entrepreneurship through the lens of U.S. federal policies

Sheela Pandey () and Alejandro S. Amezcua ()
Additional contact information
Sheela Pandey: Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg
Alejandro S. Amezcua: Syracuse University

Small Business Economics, 2020, vol. 54, issue 4, No 11, 1123-1152

Abstract: Abstract Although the USA is at the forefront of nations promoting women’s business ownership and entrepreneurship, the role of U.S. federal policies in supporting these goals remains unexamined. This study examines six decades (1951–2011) of U.S. Federal Statutes to answer the research question—how do U.S. federal policies support women’s business ownership and women’s entrepreneurship? The study methodology includes quantitative and qualitative analysis of federal laws and resolutions. The quantitative analysis suggests that in 1988, with the passage of the Women’s Business Ownership Act, the USA began to intensify policy interest in this area. What began as policy experimentation in 1988 gradually became institutionalized. The qualitative analysis suggests that in terms of broad policy intent and intended outcomes not much has changed since 1988. Given this sobering finding, we discuss important implications and future research questions to motivate stronger research on how government can better support women business owners and entrepreneurs.

Keywords: Women’s business ownership; Women’s entrepreneurship; U.S. federal policies; Content analysis; Policy typologies; J18; L26; M13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11187-018-0122-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:54:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s11187-018-0122-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/11187/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11187-018-0122-5

Access Statistics for this article

Small Business Economics is currently edited by Zoltan J. Acs and David B. Audretsch

More articles in Small Business Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().