A U‐shaped curve of female entrepreneurs? The development of women's entrepreneurship in the Netherlands, 1899–2020
研究荷兰1899至2020年女性创业数据，发现女性劳动参与率的U型曲线不适用于企业家，因为婚姻和生育等生命周期事件反而刺激了创业，且经济结构变化对女工和女企业家的需求影响不同。
Abstract Many economic historians have shown that the relationship between female labour force participation and economic development is U‐shaped. However, most studies on this phenomenon do not differentiate between female wage labourers and entrepreneurs. We argue that this is problematic because standard explanations of women's wage work do not necessarily apply to entrepreneurs. To demonstrate this, this paper studies female entrepreneurship in the Netherlands between 1899 and 2020. We show that the U‐shaped curve of female labour force participation does not hold for entrepreneurs because life‐cycle events – such as marriage and having children – stimulated rather than discouraged women to take up entrepreneurial activities. Moreover, structural change of the economy did not equally affect the demand for female wage labourers and entrepreneurs. By integrating an entrepreneurship perspective, this research provides a more complete understanding of the diversity in women's occupational choices when constrained by institutional and individual conditions.