ABSTRACT
In the past twenty years, foreign female immigrants have started to settle in Spain, mainly as workers in the expanding service economy of the larger metropolitan areas such as Madrid and Barcelona. López de Lera (2004) indicates an increase in the foreign population of 265 per cent for the period 1996-2001. At the beginning of 2002 there were two million foreigners registered in the local census (Padrones Municipales de Habitantes-INE), four times more than the 1996 census. These data also show that most of the entrepreneurs are African men, mainly Moroccans and Senegalese, and the few remaining women entrepreneurs are mainly from Asia, especially Chinese (41 per cent).
