Capabilities and (Missed) Opportunity for Women’s Entrepreneurship in Kuwait

Abstract

Kuwait offers a powerful context for investigating the entrepreneurial cultures developing in Gulf countries in response to the concurrent trends of pursuing economic diversification and efficiency, and the constraints posed by cultural narratives that maintain inequality between the sexes. Bringing a capabilities lens to the analysis of entrepreneurship promotion programs means shifting from a focus on meeting basic human needs to ensuring capabilities development. To begin, we discuss the capabilities approach to entrepreneurship with a focus on the necessity/opportunity classification. Next, we review the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Kuwait, including its focus on opportunity entrepreneurs and the legal, economic, and sociocultural framework in which they operate. After considering the impact of Kuwait’s gender-blind approach on women’s entrepreneurship, we conclude with some suggestions for strengthening Kuwait’s potential for capability expansion through entrepreneurship.

Keywords:

• capabilities
• development
• entrepreneurship
• gender
• human development
• Kuwait

JEL Classification Codes::

• B52
• B54
• L26
• O35
• O53

Notes

1 Per capita income in 2018 was US$34,243 (World Bank 2019).

2 Author calculation based on data provided in Girgis and Al Fulaij (2018).

3 Equivalent to roughly US$6.59 billion in December 2019.

4 This number represents businesses with a single owner that is female.

5 In an extension of these policies, the National Assembly began considering a bill to authorize a salary for stay-at-home mothers in June 2019 (Al Naqeeb 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melissa Langworthy

Melissa Langworthy is an Affiliate Researcher at Ladysmith.

Tonia Warnecke

Tonia Warnecke is George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Chair and Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Rollins College.