NWBC’s latest report, Necessity as a Driver of Women’s Entrepreneurship: Her Stories, explores and expands upon NWBC’s July report on necessity as a driver of women’s entrepreneurship in the United States.

In particular, this study uses case studies of nine diverse women to examine whether and how women turn to entrepreneurship to address potential market failures that limit their ability to maintain or attain economic self-sufficiency, or alternatively, to overcome flexibility bias and potential stigma in balancing work-life conflict assumed in traditional gendered roles and social norms. Findings support the value of NWBC’s theoretical model, which captures a diversity of circumstances circumstances—beyond emergency economic need or a disruptive business idea—that motivate women to become entrepreneurs.