Research has shown that women face a number of difficulties in establishing and maintaining businesses (Study “Young entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs, ethnic minorities entrepreneurs and co-entrepreneurs in the EU and Central and Eastern Europe”).
Women participation in self-employment has modestly increased since 1995 and amounted to 28 % in the EU-25 in 2003(Benchmarking enterprise policy. 2004). As female labour market participation in general has made good progress, approaching the 60 % target, self-employment has continued to be an option for comparatively few women. The pool of female entrepreneurial talent is still underexploited in the EU.