Investigating the barriers of women's entrepreneurship in Iran Society (Case: the women entrepreneurs of Yazd province)

Abstract Women’s entrepreneurship has a tremendous potential in empowering women and transforming society. Recently, it has been recognized that more and more women in many cultures such as our country are becoming entrepreneurs in a formal sense. However, the prospect of women becoming entrepreneurs is limited by various barriers. The statistics show that less than ۱۰ per cent of the entrepreneurs in Iran are women and a host of barriers prevent women from realizing their full potential as entrepreneurs. This article tries to explore and identify the barriers of women's entrepreneurship in Iran. At the first we investigated the literature on barriers to women’s entrepreneurship. Then by using of experts opinions, theses barriers are classified into seven dimensions and ۴۱ factors. Then we used statistical methods to analyses the data collected from women entrepreneurs of Yazd province. Outcomes show that ۳۰ factors in six dimensions affect women entrepreneurship. These six dimensions are familial, scientific, personality, financial, culture-society and regulation. And the nurture dimension has no effect on women entrepreneurship. Keywords: entrepreneurship, women, women entrepreneurs, barriers,