Human Capital and Women's Business Ownership

摘要

This study examines the relationship between human capital and women's self-employment. We explore the trends in women's human capital acquisition, focusing on a distinction between general and specific human capital. We further distinguish the acquisition of education, experience, and entrepreneurial preparedness within the general and specific categories to examine how different types of human capital influence women's self-employment. Using data from the Current Population Survey for the period between 1994 and 2006, we analyze human capital characteristics of self-employed women and compare them to other working women and self-employed men. We also consider how human capital varies between self-employed whites and minorities. In doing so, we provide a detailed definition of human capital and present a differentiated perspective on the link between womens human capital advancement and self-employment. In this paper, we first present an examination of the literature on human capital and entrepreneurship, especially among women. In particular, we classify general and specific human capital and highlight the ways in which different types of skills and experiences influence self-employment. After a discussion of our methodology and data sources, we present the analysis of trends in human capital and self-employment for women. We examine how human capital for self-employed women compares to human capital for other working women and self-employed men and between self-employed whites and minorities. We show how human capital acquisition varies for self-employed women relative to each of these groups and describe which are most relevant to business creation among women. The paper concludes with an assessment of whether our definition of human capital improves on standard measures of human capital in explaining self-employment among women.