Gender & Entrepreneurship in Denmark: Investigating Global & Local Gender Disparities

Dichmann, Celina Skak

4. semester

Entrepreneurial Business Engineering, Master

2024

2024-06-04

This research paper focuses on the gender gap in Denmark's entrepreneurial landscape. Despite Denmark's support for entrepreneurship, there are significantly fewer women entrepreneurs. The study aims to understand how this gender gap affects aspiring, current, or previous women entrepreneurs in Denmark by examining global reasons for lower female participation in entrepreneurship and interviewing five women entrepreneurs about their experiences. Key findings indicate that societal stereotypes, lack of female role models, internal challenges like self-doubt, and social security concerns are significant obstacles for women. Women often feel pressured to suppress their feminine traits in business, experience loneliness, and face media bias favouring successful male entrepreneurs. They also struggle with work-family balance, funding disparities, and being taken less seriously than men. Despite these challenges, the interviewed women still see entrepreneurship as an attractive career path, though some may delay starting a business or consider traditional jobs. The research suggests that increasing women in leadership roles, improving social security support, and changing media portrayals could help bridge the gender gap in entrepreneurship in Denmark.

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