Although the Enterprise Survey data are without doubt a rich source of information about enterprises, their activity, and their constraints, they have important limitations for investigating entrepreneurship disaggregated by sex.
The first problem is one of coverage. Because only enterprises are sampled, it is impossible to analyze the process of selection into entrepreneurship and the effect of the constraints on the startup of enterprises, including those owned and managed by women.
Second, sample sizes are often too small to allow an indepth analysis of women entrepreneurs, who represent in some cases only 10 percent or less of the sample.
Third, the relationship between ownership and management is not thoroughly examined in these data.Yet this issue appears to be particularly relevant for women, given that one of the more pertinent findings presented in this chapter concerns the very high percentage of women entrepreneurs who are part of a family enterprise.
Finally, in addition to clarifying the relationship between ownership and management, Enterprise Surveys would be better suited to the analysis of female entrepreneurship if they included more questions about the background of the entrepreneur, for example, more information about personal characteristics and family background, and the reasons that motivated the individual to become an entrepreneur in the first place.
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