Gender, Space, and Women’s Entrepreneurship: A Case Study in Kadıköy, Istanbul (2018–2023)
OPEN ACCESS
Loading...
Author / Producer
Date
2025-06-28
Publication Type
Journal Article
ETH Bibliography
yes
Citations
Web of Science:
Altmetric
OPEN ACCESS
Data
Abstract
This study explores the evolving dynamics of women’s entrepreneurship in Kadıköy, Istanbul between 2018 and 2023, focusing on how structural inequalities, spatial context, and socio-economic crises shape women’s entrepreneurial trajectories. Based on two rounds of in-depth interviews with thirteen women entrepreneurs, the research highlights the persistent challenges posed by limited institutional support, gendered expectations, and economic volatility, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent inflationary period. While entrepreneurship is often framed as a pathway to empowerment, the findings show that it simultaneously reproduces precarity through unpaid care responsibilities, gendered moral norms, and spatially contingent access to opportunities. Women’s strategies of resilience such as resource-sharing and adapting business models, reflect individual ingenuity, but also reveal the lack of systemic support for gender-equitable entrepreneurship. The study emphasizes the importance of intersectional and place-based approaches to understanding how gender, class, and space interact to shape entrepreneurial agency in neoliberal and patriarchal contexts.
Permanent link
Publication status
published
External links
Editor
Book title
Journal / series
Volume
26 (1)
Pages / Article No.
223 - 242
Publisher
Eastern Mediterranean University Center for Women's Studies
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Women's entrepreneurship; Gender; Space; Women entrepreneurs in Türkiye; COVID-19
Organisational unit
03887 - Wang, Jing / Wang, Jing