The Risk of Undertaking Business Activity from the Perspective of Women in the Context of Covid-19 Pandemic

Purpose: The aim of the article is to determine the differences in the attitude towards the risk of running one's own business between women and men. The authors tried to find an answer to the question of how the observations and experiences of the pandemic affect the attitudes of young women towards entrepreneurship. Design/Methodology/Approach: The theoretical part uses a critical analysis of the literature on the subject. In the empirical part, the method of online surveys was applied using a tool in the form of a Google form created by the authors of the article, conducted among 170 students at a non-public university with an economic profile in Poznań. Findings: The results of empirical research proved that a relatively large group of respondents, as many as 48.8%, was interested in running their own business. Among women, such plans were taken by 44.9% of respondents, and among men by 55.6%. Women slightly more often answered that they did not plan to run their own business or did not know what their plans were in this matter. The chi-square NW test, however, did not show any significant correlation between the respondents' gender and planning to set up one's own enterprise (p> 0.05). Moreover, although men assessed the risk of running their own business slightly lower, the Mann-Whitney U test did not show a significant difference in the level of opinions on the perception of the risk of running a business between women and men (p> 0.05). It is important that as many as 60.9% of respondents said that the pandemic did not affect their plans to start their own business. The Mann-Whitney U test showed no significant difference in the level of opinion on the impact of the pandemic on the change in the perception of running one's own business between women and men (p> 0.05). Practical Implications: The results of the research show that it is worth strengthening the proactive, entrepreneurial attitudes of young women to overcome the negative effects of the pandemic thanks to the development of the SME sector. Originality/Value: Contemporary socio-economic changes necessitate the search for new solutions that will contribute to building a stronger and entrepreneurial society.