ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the extant discourse on female immigrant entrepreneurship, as well as highlighting the approaches in the field from global perspective. It discusses the invisibility of gender in the main theoretical approaches to explain immigrant entrepreneurship and evolution of female immigrant entrepreneurship sub-field since the mid-'80s up to the present, paying particular attention to how the role of women in immigrant enterprise has been conceptualised. Given the labour-intensive nature of so many migrant firms, 'inadequate theorising' in relation to gender dynamics results in neglect of key characteristic of migrant entrepreneurship. Scholarship is beginning to highlight the sometimes sharp differences in entrepreneurship profiles of immigrant men and women, with women less likely to be business owners and, when they are, more likely to be running under-funded enterprises. The specific role of minority women in family firms remains underdeveloped despite its potential to cast light on patriarchal relations in the ethnic economy and the blurred boundaries between work and household.
