Dificuldades que as mulheres empreendedoras enfrentaram durante a pandemia do covid-19 e as soluções práticas aplicadas por elas

Abstract

In recent years, there has been much talk about entrepreneurship, especially among women. Many women have been looking for more alternatives to place themselves in the labor market in a more independent way, and entrepreneurship is one of them. Given all the challenges and achievements that women have experienced over the last decades, in 2020, everyone was surprised by the Covid-19 pandemic, making the health system chaotic, generating uncertainties in all directions, especially in the economic sector, directly affecting entrepreneurs who needed to reinvent themselves, find new opportunities and adapt to them. Given this scenario, the research aims to understand the main challenges women entrepreneurs face and the solutions applied to overcome them. To understand this theme, an online questionnaire with fourteen questions was applied. This study is characterized as qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and had forty respondent entrepreneurs. Based on the analysis, it is possible to identify that we have a significant number of mature women who have recent companies, between two and five years old, with a high level of education, most of them married and half of them with children. Their main difficulties were the drop in sales and financial problems, in addition to mental and physical health problems, problems with raw materials, suppliers and others. Aiming to overcome the challenges, they invested in social media, innovated in products and services, changed the forms of service, promoted changes in schedules, sought training, each one aiming to meet their specific needs. Most of them were able to count on the support of their families, husbands and some with financial institutions, a group of entrepreneurs and government projects, reinventing their businesses with practical solutions to manage the challenges. It is noteworthy that the aspects developed in this work aim to contribute to studies related to entrepreneurship within the recent Covid-19 pandemic and from it to understand and suggest ways to foster entrepreneurship, especially females.