Gender, immigration and entrepreneurship

Both women and immigrant entrepreneurship have been identified as effective and fruitful approaches to empowering women and immigrants, enabling them to create independent financial avenues and preserve their autonomy. Anchored in the intersectionality framework and role congruity theory, our study integrates both strands of research by providing a finer-grained exploration of the entrepreneurial engagement among women and women immigrants. We further unpack how the national context of gender inequality shapes the relationship between gender and entrepreneurship. Our data, covering 63 countries and 272,910 individuals, support our hypotheses. Our study contributes to the literature on women and immigrant entrepreneurship by (1) highlighting the intersectionality that shapes the compounded challenges women immigrants face in pursuing entrepreneurship and (2) emphasizing the contextual impact of a pivotal gender-oriented national institution—gender inequality— accentuating the disadvantage women face and reinforcing their pursuit of entrepreneurship. Consequently, our study offers implications for potential policy adjustments to promote entrepreneurial activities, both among native populations and immigrant communities, within contexts characterized by varying degrees of gender equality, thereby fostering sustainable entrepreneurship development.