Women in Entrepreneurship for Sustainability in Ireland’s West, North-West and Northern Ireland

Addressing Gender Disparity through Education

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-760-6_4How to use a DOI?

Keywords

women entrepreneurs; peripheral economy; sustainable enterprise; ESD

Abstract

In Ireland, women are under-represented among business owners and self-employed compared with the EU average. Despite initiatives, and modest progress since 2018, in 2024, just 29% of start-up teams supported by Enterprise Ireland, had a woman in the founding team (Enterprise Ireland, 2026). This paper presents findings from a documentary analysis exploring the circumstances behind the lower recorded rates of women’s entrepreneurship, relative to male counterparts, focusing specifically on the case of women in entrepreneurship within the North-West and Border, Midlands, West region of the Republic of Ireland and across the border into Northern Ireland. This is classified by Eurostat as a region in transition, with low-income averages in comparison with EU averages and other areas on the island. Findings show intense focus is placed on supporting and educating both men and women towards the pursuit of High Potential Start-Up ventures, and that there is a deficit in policy and educational support for slower growth sustainable, community focused ventures. Research shows rural regions create enterprises vital for long-term rural sustainability and social equity, prevalent in the start-up and growth ambitions of women in these areas. To address the gender imbalance in entrepreneurship in a system biased towards high-growth models, which by extension marginalises women-led, mission-driven ventures, this study recommends greater policy, mentorship and education for sustainability in entrepreneurship and enhanced gender disaggregated data collection focusing on purpose orientated sustainable enterprises that women founders engage with, in peripheral economies.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Janine Mc Ginn
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/08/23
TI  - Women in Entrepreneurship for Sustainability in Ireland’s West, North-West and Northern Ireland
BT  - Proceedings of the Conference of Growing up the Future: Education for Sustainability (GROUFES 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 30
EP  - 44
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-760-6_4
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-760-6_4
ID  - McGinn2026
ER  -