Female Digital Entrepreneurs and the Pandemic: A Surge in Agency or a Struggle for Survival?

Friday 28 March 2025

By Dr. Gráinne Kelly from Queen’s Business School and Professor Maura McAdam from DCU Business School.

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the global economy, disrupting traditional business models and accelerating the shift to digital entrepreneurship. For women entrepreneurs, this period was marked by both immense challenges and unique opportunities. Based on in-depth interviews with women digital entrepreneurs who set up digital businesses during the pandemic, this article explores how they exercised agency in navigating the crisis, making strategic decisions, and adapting to the shifting business landscape. While digital technologies are often perceived as levelling the playing field, our research highlights the persistence of gendered barriers and the need for systemic change to create a truly equitable digital entrepreneurial ecosystem that values talent regardless of gender.

Resilience and Strategic Adaptation

The pandemic forced businesses across sectors to rethink their models overnight. For women entrepreneurs, this meant embracing rapid change, leveraging technology, and finding innovative ways to create new digital venture whilst simultaneously managing caregiving responsibilities, homeschooling and childcare. Many pivoted their business models, moved services online, and tapped into new markets that emerged due to shifting consumer behaviours. Digital tools like Shopify, Zoom, and Instagram became essential, allowing women entrepreneurs to conduct operations despite restrictions. However, access to these tools was not always equal, with some facing challenges in securing funding to support their digital endeavours.

Balancing Business, Family, and Gendered Expectations

While the flexibility of digital entrepreneurship is often touted as an advantage for women, our interviews reveal that it also reinforced traditional gendered responsibilities, with caregiving responsibilities disproportionately falling on women’s shoulders. Many of the entrepreneurs we spoke with faced increased caregiving burdens, balancing business demands during the pandemic with homeschooling, childcare, and household duties. Despite their agency in adapting their businesses, they still had to navigate deep-rooted gender norms - beliefs and expectations that placed additional pressure on them during the pandemic.

Making Sense of the Digital Gender Divide

The dominant narrative surrounding digital entrepreneurship is one of empowerment and equal opportunity. However, as our research demonstrates, this perspective often overlooks the structural challenges that persist in the digital sphere. While some women viewed their success as purely the result of their individual achievements, others acknowledged the systemic barriers that shaped their journey. Women-founded startups remain underrepresented in venture capital funding and only account for only 2% or less of Venture Capital funding invested in Europe. This is despite a study by Boston Consulting Group showing that although women-founded startups attract less venture capital funding than their male counterparts they often deliver higher revenue. Many of the entrepreneurs we interviewed reported difficulties securing financial support for their businesses. Some relied on personal savings or informal funding networks, highlighting the need for more inclusive investment structures.

Policy and Structural Changes for a More Inclusive Digital Economy

The experiences of these entrepreneurs underscore the urgent need for policies that support women in digital business. Governments and financial institutions must recognise the barriers that exist offline also exist online and implement measures to create a more equitable environment.

Key Recommendations:

Access to Funding: Increasing access to grant programmes, microloans, and venture capital for women-led digital businesses with a better understanding of their needs and realities.
Digital Skills Training: Offering accessible training programmes to help women entrepreneurs upskill in technology, e-commerce, and online marketing.
Childcare and Support Networks: Implementing policies that recognise the intersection of work and caregiving responsibilities (some of which are invisible) such as tax incentives for childcare or government-backed parental support programmes.
Challenge Stereotypes through Visibility and Representation: Promoting the visibility of women entrepreneurs in media, conferences, and leadership roles within digital entrepreneurship to broaden who can be a digital entrepreneur.

Toward an Equitable Digital Future

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation, and women entrepreneurs played a crucial role in shaping this new landscape. Through resilience, strategic adaptation, and creative problem-solving, they exercised agency in ways that challenged traditional business norms. However, their experiences also highlight persistent gender disparities that must be addressed for a truly inclusive digital economy to emerge.

As we move forward in a post-pandemic world, businesses, policymakers, and investors must take collective action to dismantle barriers and foster a digital entrepreneurial ecosystem where women can thrive. The digital economy has immense potential to empower women, but only if it is built with equity at its core. When women have equal opportunities to contribute, we all benefit from their ideas, innovations, and unique perspectives that drive economic growth and social progress.

Friday 28 March 2025