Women and Entrepreneurship: An Analysis in the Spanish University Context

Entrepreneurial capital in any society is a phenomenon requiring complex analysis, for which it is essential to undertake a rigorous analysis of the situation from the gender viewpoint. University education is a characteristic feature of the typical entrepreneurial profile. In analysing gender-related differences in perceptions of entrepreneurship, it is therefore important to focus on the university sector. The main objective of the present study was to compare the entrepreneurial intentions of university students and their evaluation of the figure of the entrepreneur, contrasting the perceptions of men and women (using students from the University of Cordoba, Spain as the case). A questionnaire was applied to a sample of 1,400 students in classes taken from a population of 15,660 students in the whole university. Statistical treatment will contrast this study with those carried out in diverse universities and countries. Over the next few years, it is foreseeable that women (at least those who attend university) are less likely than men to create businesses. Currently, only one in every five university women contemplates the possibility of starting a business. The article testifies to differences in the self-evaluation that university students have about diverse attributes of great importance to entrepreneurship.