Female entrepreneurship is not a recent phenomenon. Nevertheless, we still know little about its historical development, let alone about the validity of contemporary theories to explain changes over time and between regions. My Veni project will change this by combining the social sciences and history disciplines to explain the change in different forms of female entrepreneurship in Europe since 1900. The project will answer three key questions: 1) What barriers women face(d) when they start and run a business; 2) If and how these barriers change over time, and 3) How women’s solutions to these constraints change. To answer these questions, I will look at the interaction between the historical structural and institutional factors and informal local solutions such as family firms. To test these explanations, I will gather new historical evidence on female business-owners and innovators for a comparative analysis of 28 European countries since 1980, and archival sources for an in-depth case-study of the Netherlands, the UK, and France since 1900. An exciting element of this project is that its interdisciplinary approach will lay the foundation for new intervention tools to stimulate female entrepreneurship today.

In relation to the Financial and Institutional Reforms to build an Entrepreneurial Society in Europe (FIRES)  project, I work on the historical evolution of labour, knowledge and financial institutions in Europe during the twentieth century and their long term link with (female) entrepreneurship. Please refer to http://www.projectfires.eu/ for information on the research project. It is a EU-funded Horizon 2020 project.

Does economic development contribute to and result in more ‘agency’, the power of individuals to decide for themselves? And is the reverse also true? Can we find a link between historical developments (e.g. the advent of literacy) and institutions (laws, family forms, political systems) which promoted agency and the actual economic developments in the various countries of the world? These questions are central in this research project.

Nobel Prize laureate Amartya Sen (1999) already argued that the ‘freedom’ to realize one’s potential is a major determinant and contributing factor of economic development. A crucial factor in this respect is ‘human capital formation’: education will increase the agency of people - enhance their possibilities to shape their own lives – and is at the same time an essential ingredient of economic development. We aim to study these interrelationships in depth, with a specific focus on gender. Given the crucial role of women in socialization (producing human capital of the new generation), we will look closely at (institutions creating) gender differences in agency.

Thus, we study the interaction between agency and economic development at two, interrelated levels: at the micro level of household and family formation (are men and women allowed and able to make their own choices in this respect, or are – for example – marriages arranged?) and at the macrolevel of the state (are people allowed and able to be involved in the political decision making process?). We have developed innovative ways to measure these variables on a global scale. This will allow us to contribute significantly to the important debates among social scientist and historians about these links. Moreover, we think that adding the dimension of gender will deepen the analysis of these relationships.

Based on empirical evidence, the first part of the dissertation examined the global progress that has been made towards gender equality in the last one and a half century, and the long term institutional and socio-economic causes behind this process. The second part studies the consequences of historical family institutions that discriminate against women for the democratic and economic development of societies. The dissertation is available at: https://www.ris.uu.nl/ws/files/15990427/dillivanleeuwen.pdf
For more information on the project, please refer to:http://www.cgeh.nl/agency-gender-and-economic-development-world-economy-1850-2000

• dr. Auke Rijpma
• dr. Sarah Carmichael
• prof. dr. Jan Luiten van Zanden