Women in social entrepreneurship: challenges and opportunities in EU and beyond

Women are increasingly becoming engaged in entrepreneurship globally, and it is crucial to understand what can be done to remove barriers, scale-up entrepreneurship access and empower women. In this sense, social entrepreneurship can play a vital role in empowering women in their professional life and business environment. Women-led social enterprises drive positive changes in societal and environmental issues, making significant impact on the lives of women. This paper presents the comparative analysis of challenges and opportunities for women to become social entrepreneurs in six European Union countries—Latvia, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France and one country outside the European Union country—Armenia. The evidence shows that the development of social entrepreneurship and forms of social enterprises differ across various focus countries. However, there is a common objective to achieve social impact and benefits for society provided by the social entrepreneurship. Despite existing challenges, women appear to be a majority among entrepreneurs in social entrepreneurship and founders of social enterprises which makes a significant contribution in this area of entrepreneurship. Therefore, national, and local authorities should not underestimate the contribution of the social entrepreneurship to the socioeconomic development and increasing role of women in entrepreneurship in general and social entrepreneurship in particular that will help to increase the welfare level in society and stimulate economic growth.