According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, in Portugal, there are six women for every ten men entrepreneurs. For my research, I asked the question, why are there fewer women entrepreneurs in the country and what can we do to better support these female entrepreneurs?
In the past seven months, I talked to many women who owned businesses about the challenges they faced in running their businesses. Some of them wanted to hire new employees, like computer programmers, but they did not know who to ask. Other entrepreneurs still had to work a full-time job or take care of their family and did not have the time or money to grow their businesses. Do you know anyone in your family or friends who own their own businesses?
From 1933 until 1974, Portugal had a dictatorship known as the Estado Novo or "New State." The President for most of this time, António Salazar, enforced strict rules for women in the country. For example, women could not travel without first asking their husbands for permission. Today, women have made great progress, but there are still some inequalities in society.
