*2.3. Gender (GEN)*

Regarding EI, the differences between men and women are largely produced by the influence of the environment that surrounds them, which is accentuated in the case of more traditional cultures [59]. This phenomenon explains that, worldwide, women are less likely to start a business [60,61], and that in the case of Latin America, this probability is lower in comparison with those of other more-developed regions [62–64].

Women in Latin America have fewer incentives to undertake a business project than men [64,65]: they are more affected by the corruption of institutions [66,67], find difficulties in accessing services related to business development and training systems [68–70], and have problems joining professional networks in which they can access essential information to start and manage a business, as well as find easier access to financial and technological resources and marketing channels [69,70]. Furthermore, the inequality present in the region penalizes women even when they are trained, motivated, and have the necessary knowledge to be able to start a business [65]. One of the main obstacles they must face is related to obtaining financial resources [71], which, in the end, forces them to focus on their ability to save before starting an entrepreneurial project [72].

This set of barriers that women in Latin America must face negatively conditions their perception of entrepreneurship and reduces, in most cases, their motivation to start a business to the cases in which they are driven by necessity [73], pointing to self-employment as the main motivation of women who undertake a business venture [69]. Thus, considering the influence of the environment surrounding women in Latin America that interposes all these barriers on their path to entrepreneurship, this study proposes the existence of a causal relationship between the gender of university students and their EI.
