in sum the gap is a result of gender differences in key strategic choices women s choice of industry their preferred size of business the level of risk they are willing to accept and the hours they can devote to their business further analysis of the reasons behind these different approaches can help policies to target specific market failures and the stereotypes that affect women more than men a mix of general policies for smes and instruments explicitly targeting women can be effective in prompting interest and entry into entrepreneurship the small business administration sba in the united states has explicitly explored a mix of general gendermainstreamed programmes and womenspecific policies and has continuously experimented with new ones