Young and Women Entrepreneurs in Neo-endogenous Development

Research has shown that rather than helping rural development programmes tend to discriminate against the most disadvantaged social groups and geographic areas. Women and young people are amongst the most affected social groups while remote, mountainous regions are normally the most vulnerable geographic areas. The economic crisis in Spain made it difficult to find work in the cities and in the construction and services industries, which had hitherto been an abundant source of employment for young people and women from country areas. These changes forced people from these social groups to look for new ways of earning a living with the result that increasing numbers of women and young people began to consider setting up their own businesses. In this chapter, we will be assessing the participation of these groups as entrepreneurs within the LEADER axis in Andalusia. The results show that, in spite of their increasing participation, the number of women and young entrepreneurs remain below their share of the population. We also found that within these more marginal social groups, young businesswomen made the lowest average investments and generated the fewest jobs as most view their businesses as a means of self-employment. We also observed that rural entrepreneurs were more likely to employ people of their own sex.