Gender Differences in Early-stage Entrepreneurship in Three European Post-socialist Countries

This paper focuses on differences in male and female early-stage entrepreneurship in Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia. The analysis was performed on two levels: cross-country analysis and inter-country analysis. The paper focuses on three main characteristics of early-stage entrepreneurial activity among adults: entrepre-neurial capacity, analysed through entrepreneurial awareness and risk aversion, motivation for entrepreneurship, by analysing opportunity-driven and necessity-pushed entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial growth aspirations of male and female early-stage entrepreneurs in Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia. Despite sharing a long history of adjoining living, countries differ significantly in various aspects. Significant gender differences were identified within each of the three countries. Some of the most interesting results include: lower entrepreneurial awareness also lowers risk aversion among adults in a country; men are more likely to perceive and exploit business opportunities than women; women are, on average, less likely to start new firms; however, once started, female entrepreneurs have similar growth aspirations as their male counterparts.