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was that male entrepreneurs were found to be especially receptive to female entrepreneurs. “Even with the rapid growth of entrepreneurship and progress towards greater equity, diversity and inclusion, it seems that traditional gender role expectations still persist,” commented Xiumei Li, study co-author and an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Asper School of Business. The researchers conducted a follow‑up survey of just under 1,000 men to better understand the perceptions underlying their dating decisions. “Respondents often described female entrepreneurs as ‘accomplished’ and ‘independent’, but they also frequently described them as ‘domineering,’” recounted Li. “Female teachers, by contrast, were much more often described as ‘kind, understanding and family-oriented’.” The findings raise the possibility of a new challenge for female entrepreneurs, who are already linked to experiencing more difficulties in sourcing funding than their male counterparts. “The goal of the research isn’t to discourage women from becoming entrepreneurs. It’s to better understand the barriers they may encounter, so we can eventually address those barriers,” Li concluded. TBD “Even with the rapid progress towards greater equity, diversity and inclusion, it seems that traditional gender role expectations persist”
STUDY IDENTIFIES NEW CHALLENGE FOR FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS: DATING PROSPECTS
platform, Jiayuan , changing only the occupation. They found that female entrepreneurs were significantly less likely to receive responses than comparable female managers, whereas no such penalty was observed for men. They then looked at how interest in a profile changed when a woman’s occupation was listed as growth‑oriented startup founder or lifestyle-oriented florist, compared with two occupations traditionally perceived as feminine (nurse and teacher). The results indicated a romantic penalty for the startup founder but not for the florist. The one exception to this rule
SCHOOL Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba, Canada
emale entrepreneurs are less likely to receive dating interest from men than female
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managers, according to a new study involving the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business. In the study, researchers placed a series of fictitious profiles using AI‑generated photos (with institutional ethics approval) on the Chinese dating
7 Business Impact • ISSUE 5 • 2026
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