The chapter, published by Elsevier in the book Women’s Entrepreneurship and the Sustainable Development Goals, starts from a simple question: If you care about gender equality and the SDGs, is it enough to “add more women” to entrepreneurship as we know it – or do we also need to rethink what counts as valuable entrepreneurship in the first place?
We argue that women’s entrepreneurship in the arts and creative sectors in Western Europe is a good place to think this through.
What the numbers hide: women, entrepreneurship, and the SDGs
Most policy texts about women and entrepreneurship begin with the participation gap.
- In OECD countries, women are still far less likely than men to become entrepreneurs. In Europe, women are about 40% less likely to choose an entrepreneurial career, and fewer than one in three entrepreneurs are women.
- If women started businesses at the same rate as men, the OECD and European Commission estimate there would be about 25 million more entrepreneurs across OECD countries, including 5.5 million in the EU.
From this angle, the policy story is mainly about “missed potential” for growth and jobs. But the literature we review shows something else that is often overlooked: how women do entrepreneurship once they are in it. Across studies, women entrepreneurs are:
- More likely to set impact-oriented goals and to build pro-social business models.
- Overrepresented among firms that work explicitly on SDGs such as responsible production and consumption, innovation and infrastructure, and good health and well-being.
- More likely than men to run ventures that target community, care, and social needs, even when this choice reduces income or growth prospects.
For example, one recent European study shows that 35% of women-led firms report working on responsible production and consumption, 15% on industry, innovation and infrastructure, and 11% on health and well-being – all higher shares than among men-led firms.
So women’s entrepreneurship is not just a “missing quantity”. It also has a distinct quality that maps closely onto the SDG agenda.
The problem is that the ecosystem around them still assumes that “good entrepreneurship” is synonymous with rapid firm growth, strong capitalisation, and formal job creation. Women who focus on social value and community outcomes often do not tick these boxes.
A paradox in the cultural and creative sectors
On the surface, the cultural and creative sectors look like a success story for gender parity:
- In 2022, there were about 3.76 million men and 3.60 million women working in cultural and creative jobs in Europe – a small gender gap on record.
- In several countries, women are actually more likely than men to work in creative occupations.
This is one reason why the arts are often perceived as more open, flexible, and “female friendly” than, say, tech or manufacturing. However, when we look at positions and earnings, a familiar pattern reappears:
- Women are still underrepresented in top roles and in leadership of the largest organisations, even in strongly feminised sectors such as fashion.
- In the European creative industries, women entrepreneurs earn on average 15–20% less than their male counterparts. The gap is largest in non-subsidised parts of the sector, where fees and salaries are negotiated case by case.
This is the creative gender paradox: a sector that comes close to headcount parity, but still reproduces structural inequality in visibility, decision-making power, and pay. At the same time, cultural and creative work is increasingly mobilised in policies on social cohesion, urban development, health, and climate transition. If these sectors are being asked to “do” SDG work, it matters who is actually in charge within them.
Structural barriers
The chapter brings together evidence on why women remain underrepresented across the different stages of entrepreneurship – from intentions to start-up to scaling and leading. The picture is not of “deficient women” but of a system that systematically makes entrepreneurship harder for them:
- Knowledge and confidence. In Europe, only about 38% of women say they have the necessary knowledge and skills to start a venture, compared with 50% of men.
- Access to finance. Studies repeatedly show that women face greater difficulties obtaining capital, whether from banks, venture capital, or investors. Culturally coded expectations about risk profiles and “proper” growth trajectories play a role here.
- Networks and role models. Women have less access to entrepreneurial networks and are less likely to see people “like them” in leadership roles. As the director of MEWEM, one of our case studies, put it, the music industry is still shaped by three obstacles: limited access to finance, limited access to networks, and a lack of female role models.
- Social norms and unpaid care. Gendered expectations about care work and “appropriate” careers continue to shape who sees entrepreneurship as an option and who can afford the risks and time investment it requires.
These barriers become more pronounced in cultural and creative sectors, where earnings are often low, income streams unstable, and formal employment conditions weak.
Why look at culture, creativity, and women’s entrepreneurship?
Given all this, why focus on women entrepreneurs in the arts and creative industries at all? Our argument is that these sectors offer a strategic but still underused space for SDG-oriented entrepreneurship:
- They already attract many women. Compared to other sectors, creative work has a relatively high share of women, including in self-employment and freelance roles. Many are already de facto entrepreneurs, even if they are not labelled that way.
- They work directly with human needs. Cultural and creative organisations address identity, belonging, expression, mental health, and participation. These are central themes in SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).
- They normalise hybrid value models. Cultural and creative ventures often combine public funding, earned income, and private donations, and deliver a mix of artistic, social, and economic outcomes. This makes them a natural home for models that do not fit neatly into “for-profit” or “non-profit” boxes.
Our three case studies – Women Connected in Rotterdam, Allez, Chantez! in Belgium, and MEWEM in France – are examples of women-led initiatives that take this potential seriously. Some of their own words capture what is at stake:
- A founder of Women Connected describes their entrepreneurship as ethical and collaborative: doing good things together and doing things well together. Being dependent on participants and funders can be a force.
- The entrepreneur behind Allez, Chantez! explains her model with a simple contrast: it is “not about transactions, but about exchanges.” The core resource is a community of people who sing together, not a product sold at arm’s length.
- The director of MEWEM links diversity directly to narrative power, speaking of “bringing diversity into art and music” so that more people can recognise themselves in the stories that are told.
These short statements say something important about women’s entrepreneurship in creative fields: it often centres relationships, shared experiences, and collective narratives rather than individual performance or firm-level growth.
Two key messages from our chapter
Seen through this lens, our chapter has two main messages for people who care about women, entrepreneurship, and the SDGs.
1. Change what we measure when we talk about “good” entrepreneurship
If women’s ventures are more likely to be pro-social, impact-oriented, and SDG-aligned, but we keep evaluating them mainly on firm size, profit, and formal job creation, we will keep underestimating their contribution. For example, a small women-led enterprise that improves mental health, strengthens social ties, or builds local trust may do more for SDG progress than a larger firm that grows quickly but ignores these dimensions. For researchers, this means designing studies and indicators that capture social and cultural value more systematically. For policy makers, it means rethinking eligibility and success criteria in support schemes and finance instruments.
2. Treat the cultural and creative sectors as a serious SDG laboratory
Because of their gender composition, funding mix, and focus on human experience, the arts and creative industries are well placed to host experimental forms of SDG-oriented entrepreneurship. To make use of this potential, policy needs to move beyond generic “support for women entrepreneurs” and consider more targeted measures, such as better access to finance for small, hybrid ventures, procurement and commissioning practices that value social cohesion, community engagement, and inclusion as explicit outcomes as well as mentoring programmes and peer networks.
The three cases in our chapter show how arts and culture can contribute to SDGs. A relatively small amount of well-designed support can help such initiatives build more sustainable structures, for example in cross-sector collaborations that connect cultural initiatives with health, education, and urban policy.
Why this matters
People who care about women, entrepreneurship and the arts are often looking both for concrete examples and for evidence that these examples matter beyond individual careers. Our chapter suggests that women’s creative entrepreneurship can advance SDG 5 on gender equality and several other SDGs, while also nudging mainstream entrepreneurship debates toward a broader understanding of value.
About the article
Papotto, S., & Loots, E. (2025). Empowering women through culture, creativity, and entrepreneurship for the Sustainable Development Goals. In Women’s Entrepreneurship and the Sustainable Development Goals (pp. 79–109). Elsevier https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-443-28802-9.00012-9
About the authors
Samuela Papotto is affiliated with the Arts and Culture Studies Department at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Codarts University of the Arts.
Ellen Loots is Associate Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
About the image
Credits: Women connected: The feel good podcast show in Theater Rotterdam in June 2024. ©Hannah Rosalie
Writing this text was supported by ChatGPT (OpenAI).
