Female entrepreneurship and immigration in the Piedmont region. Is it possible that the low-skilled immigration of women influences the survival rate of female-led entrepreneurship?

The aim of this master’s degree thesis is to analyze if there is a correlation between the survival rate of female-led entrepreneurship and the number of low-skilled immigrant women, who provide home and children care, in the Piedmont region. After the introduction, a study of the background literature is made. Here it is explained what a start-up is and the causes that lead it to failure. Then, the situation of female entrepreneurship is analyzed. After an analysis of the immigrant situation in the Piedmont region and Italy, a focus on Patricia Cortes’ research (the study that inspired this thesis) is made. In the end, it is possible to find a little section about Piedmont’s start-ups. In the second chapter, a theoretical explanation of the statistical method that is used to evaluate the relationship between female entrepreneurship and low-skilled women is provided. To create the models, it was necessary to collect data from two big databases: ISTAT (the Statistical National Institution), regarding immigrant women with age between 25 and 65 years old, and AIDA (Computer Analysis of Italian Companies) regarding data about innovative start-ups and enterprises. Using the statistic software STATA, a final database was created and, after defining the different variables that can influence the duration of life of a start-up (the selected dependent variable), the different linear regression models were implemented. The results obtained suggest that considering the immigrant stock for a bigger geographical area (for example by Local Labor System or by Province) is more accurate than considering them for each municipality. However, also considering it in a large geographical area, in this analysis the results achieved are all statistically insignificant.