Contemporary Female Entrepreneurship in Nicaragua

Abstract

Women are important entrepreneurial actors within the Nicaraguan economic ecosystem. Majority fe-male-owned firms comprise 32.7% of all urban Nicaraguan formal enterprises; these ownership rates far exceed the regional (21.8%) or global averages (14.5%). Within Nicaragua, self-employment rates for women (43.3%) surpass that of men (28.3%). This article describes the contemporary Nicaraguan entrepreneurial landscape for female-owned enterprises using the 2016 Nicaraguan Enterprise Survey of 333 formal sector urban-based firms conducted by the World Bank. Principal multivariate results include the concentration of female top management with majority female-ownership, the role of the informal sector in spawning formal female enterprises, and size constraints of female-owned enterprises.