Supporting Female Entrepreneurs of Northwestern Italy: The influence of low-skilled immigrated women and childcare services on the survival rate of female-led innovative startup

The aim of this master’s degree thesis is to replicate the Patrcia Cortes’ research, conducted in US, about the positive impact of low-skilled immigrated women on the female participation in the labor market. In particular, this paper wants to verify if there is a positive correlation between the survival rate of female-led innovative startups, the presence of low-skilled immigrated women and the presence of care services such as nurseries and early childhood services, in the Noth-west of Italy. The basic assumption that is made is that these childcare services provide native entrepreneurial women, who are also mothers, with the opportunity to take care of their children, while low-skilled immigrated women similarly, give a greater support for household and family care. In this way, entrepreneurial women can devote more time to their professional careers and perform better. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to the background literature which gives an idea of what is meant by an innovative startup, which are the legal requirements in Italy to build a startup, the available sources of funding, and the key factors influencing the survival of startups. The second part focuses on the role of the female entrepreneur, in particular it is given a brief historical overview on how women have managed to establish themselves both socially and professionally over the years, up to the current condition in which women still face socio-cultural obstacles preventing them from taking on entrepreneurial risks; these obstacles are then analyzed and possible solutions to overcome them are suggested. Additionally, this section examines the current situation of immigration and the impact that low-skilled immigrated women have on female participation in the labor market in north-western Italy. This is followed by the construction of the empirical model based on a linear regression analysis conducted by collecting data on immigration and childcare services from ISTAT (Statistical National Institution) and data on innovative startups and enterprises from AIDA (Computer Analysis of Italian Companies). After data collection a final database has been created using the software STATA and all variables that may affect the duration of a startup have been defined to carry out the empirical analysis.