Good afternoon, honourable Chair, vice-chairs and committee members. My name is Lechin Lu. I'm the associate director of the Institute for Gender and the Economy, or GATE, at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.
GATE is a research centre dedicated to using rigorous research to transform conversations around gender equality. For the past few years, GATE has been a key member of the Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub. At GATE our work focuses on identifying the systemic barriers women entrepreneurs face; highlighting the unique experiences of women entrepreneurs from marginalized communities, especially racialized and indigenous women; and amplifying inclusive, intersectional approaches to address their unique needs.
Additionally, we have developed a series of case studies on women-founded, women-owned and women-led businesses, offering actionable insights that inspire more inclusive and impactful business innovation.
Today I would like to highlight three critical challenges that we have identified through our research.
First, discussions on entrepreneurship often focus narrowly on high-tech, high-growth businesses. While these areas are important, this narrow view overlooks the broader spectrum of entrepreneurship, such as small and medium-sized enterprises and self-employment, sectors where women are overrepresented. In Canada, SMEs account for almost 90% of private sector employment; in contrast, fewer than 10% of companies with 100 employees or more are owned by women. Supporting women entrepreneurs requires recognizing and addressing the unique challenges faced by different types of businesses, each of which plays a vital role in the economy.
Second, much of the current research and policy initiatives treat women entrepreneurs as a single homogeneous group, overlooking the distinct challenges faced by women of colour, indigenous women, immigrant women and those from other marginalized communities. For example, studies show that Black and immigrant women are more likely to rely on family networks for capital, while institutional support often fails to meet their needs.
Similarly, research indicates that in the U.S., government recovery programs intended to support entrepreneurship after natural disasters may have an unintentional consequence of reinforcing racial divides. This underscores the need for intersectional approaches to entrepreneurship policies and research—ones that consider the compounded effects of different forms of inequality women entrepreneurs experience—and better implementation of GBA+ to help collect and use intersectional data to design targeted and more effective policy and programs, as needed, to meet the distinctive needs of the diverse community of women entrepreneurs.
Third, social and cultural biases underpin many of the challenges women entrepreneurs face, shaping their experiences and outcomes as business owners. These biases are heavily influenced by socialized attitudes and behaviours. Research shows that from a young age, women and men are encouraged to develop different sets of skills and knowledge, or what we call “human capital”. This contributes to gendered differences in how entrepreneurs identify business opportunities and pursue growth, leading to very distinct entrepreneurial pathways.
Gender stereotypes also influence how others perceive women’s dedication and competence in entrepreneurial spaces. Biases are embedded in programs and processes, affecting structural access to the critical resources necessary for business growth.
Growing evidence suggests that women and men receive differential treatment in accessing loans and venture capital. Women are often judged by different criteria and held to higher standards than their male counterparts. Women-led start-ups also tend to receive less funding, even when delivering the same pitch as male-led start-ups.
In conclusion, while progress has been made, much more remains to be done to better support women entrepreneurs. Policies and initiatives must recognize the diverse pathways that women take and address the systemic barriers and persistent stereotypes they face. Achieving this requires strategic investments in gender disaggregated data collection, deeper analysis, and co-creation with women entrepreneurs to develop more gender-transformative policies and programs.
Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to your questions.