Jamaica's development of women entrepreneurship: challenges and opportunities

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to assess how far Jamaica has come regarding women economic empowerment, female entrepreneurship and its development policies in favour of women entrepreneurship development. Design/methodology/approach - This exploratory study employs a mixed method approach to achieve its research objectives, consisting of literature review and corroboration with existing database and indices. Key insights of research on female entrepreneurship are used to reflect on published data to assess progress of female entrepreneurship development in Jamaica. The 2017 editions of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and Gender Entrepreneurship and Development Index were examined to gain a better understanding of how the Jamaican business environment has progressed or regressed over time and how the economic development and business environment impact female participation in Jamaica's labour force and entrepreneurial initiatives. Findings - The economic conditions in Jamaica and the role of females as domestic caregiver have made it difficult for women to enter the labour force even though Jamaican women are relatively better educated than men. Women remain at a disadvantage in the labour force. Jamaica's legislation and budget allocations in favour of female entrepreneurship are analysed to identify where and how Jamaica is investing its efforts to improve women's participation in the labour force. The authors conclude with suggestions on how the Jamaican government could facilitate further women entrepreneurship development to reach a more gender balanced inclusive socio-economic development. Originality/value - While global policy has been promoting women empowerment through entrepreneurial development, little is known on the actual outcome of such human capital investment strategy and the critical vectors that contribute to such outcome. This scarcity of knowledge is also applicable to Jamaica. This paper attempts to contribute to women entrepreneurship research by reaching beyond the output-oriented perspective of various skill development programmes and attempts to link policy choice with overall macro results of entrepreneurship development in general and women entrepreneurship development in specific. The study thus provides a rare glimpse of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Jamaica.