From Vulnerability to Entrepreneurship

Certain groups in Croatia still face barriers and challenges in initiating, owning, and scaling a business. Women and people in older cohorts (ages 50-64) represent one of the largest groups of "missing" entrepreneurs - a term used by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to describe underrepresented populations in entrepreneurship due to systemic obstacles such as limited access to finance, networks, skills, and regulatory challenges (OECD & European Commission 2023). Almost 80 percent of these missing entrepreneurs are women. The OECD also notes that out of a total of 148,214 registered companies operating in the country in 2023, only 21.4 percent were exclusively owned by women, with another 9.1 percent being co-owned by women. At the same time, Croatia has the third-lowest share of people in older cohorts in the European Union (EU) who are involved in creating businesses (OECD/European Commission, 2023)