4 CONCLUSIONS

Even today, at the beginning of the XXI century, females hold a low profile role in the Italian economic context. Certainly, however, the presence of the females in the working environment is destined to expand, both through the increasing scholastic's and professional qualification's level, and through the inclination to remove every form of discrimination with man, main objective of the European Community, and pursued with the mainstreaming politics.
In particular, for what concerns the business, in Italy, females represent only 18,6% of the total, data which should allow for reflection on the real equal opportunities between man and female.

The causes of this gap have to be essentially researched in the following factors:

• elements with a cultural and sociological nature have often influenced the female's choices for what concerns the kind of activity to carry out. In particular, the frequent "double work load" to which females are often obliged to cope with, forces her to devote less time, compared to men, to the carrying out of the working activity, turning, therefore, her own preferences towards working activities less demanding with respect to the entrepreneurship.
• females, towards our financial system, pays for the negative effects of a series of factors:
  1. scarce "financial culture";
  2. perception on behalf of the financial system of the "specific risk" peculiar for females, which inevitably ends up by increasing the perception of the initiative's overall risk;
  3. female's scarce wealth capitalization, which excludes them from the ordinary financing circuits.

For what concerns point a., it is referred to the lack of experience and know how justified by the fact that, traditionally, the financial function within the enterprises has always been the almost exclusive prerogative of man, in this way preventing the female to develop in advance the adequate competencies in the matter.

With reference to point b., there is often the perception of an additional risk on behalf of the financer, when the initiative is proposed by a female. This plus would be justified in the woman's peculiarities, who are forced to share their time between work and domestic engagements. This position towards females in our community is unfortunately encouraged by cultural and social factors, and it inevitably ends up by worsening the risk that the entrepreneur does not manage the business in the best way.

In confirmation of these fears, it is pointed out the difficulty of the woman's mobility, who are in-between the business and the domestic commitments (for example, the children's care); such difficulty could materialise in strategic choices not always economically comprehensible, as for example the " preconceived" not achievement of globalisation strategies.

Finally, for what concerns point c., once again it is referred to an element with a cultural evident origin; the female only in the recent years has been able to impose herself as an economically independent person, "worthy" of being owner of patrimonial goods.

Obviously, such a discriminant assumes great importance, in a financial context as the Italian one, characterised by the uncontested predominance of a not always efficient banking system, and which prefers to reward the existence of guarantees rather than the project validity.

In this context the creation of new activities clashes with the shortage, in our financing system, of people inclined to invest in the risk capital of small and medium-sized enterprises, phenomenon which is further increased in the depressed areas of Southern Italy, and also the recourse to facilitation's forms is not often able to offset it.
For instance it can be thought of the utilisation of the aids' regime (grants), for the creation of new entrepreneurship: it is often ignored that also the Government requests some guarantees for the effective outpayment of the contributions, "unconsciously" ending up by further fomenting the vicious circle of our financing system.

It is, therefore, necessary to arrange the creation of a virtuous circle which foresees, through the competitive relaunch of the financial system in general, and of the banking one in particular, as well as through the spreading of a new business culture, the spreading of new instruments to support the development of new entrepreneurship, with particular attention to the removal of the discriminations men/female, previously described.

In this viewpoint the utilisation of the Guarantee Fund could contribute in a considerable manner to the diffusion of a new culture both from the financial system as well as the entrepreneurial environment.

The validity of this instrument concerning the creation of financial circuits characterised by a co-operation's logic on behalf of the directly involved individuals, seems to be confirmed, as well as by the theoretical assumptions, also by the previous Italian short experiences of the Guarantee Funds.

Therefore, after having verified the utility of the Guarantee Fund as instrument of the business' financial support in general and after having considered the particular requirements of the female entrepreneurship, it is consequently proposed the establishment of a specific Guarantee Fund to support the start up and the development of new female entrepreneurship.

This fund should possess some specific characteristics in favour of the female entrepreneur.

First of all, because of the scarce female's wealth capitalisation, it could be useful to extend the intervention's limit of financial operations up to the threshold of 85% of the financing.

It could be furthermore assigned a percentage of the Fund's financial endowment in support of operations of the holdings' acquisitions, most of all considering that the beginning phase of any business needs a financial supply with characteristics of medium-long term repayment (the maximum term of the guarantee could be for example equal to 9 years).

The Guarantee Fund could also hold a consultant and assistant role in the business in the most important decisions both in the start up planning phase, and in the successive development's one, where the lack of professionality in the resources business management is often cause of the failure of the business itself.

Always from the viewpoint of the reduced existent discriminations, it would be suitable that the Fund also provides for the expansion of the financial culture amongst females. From this point of view, it could be foreseen the duty of setting aside a revenue's percentage towards the promotion of training courses for female entrepreneurs who can benefit by the Guarantee Fund.

An additional important element to consider concerns the hypothesis to delimit the intervention of the fund exclusively in favour of the enterprises with no more than 7/8 years of life. This choice would be justified by the following elements:

• during the first years of the business' life, the female entrepreneur will be able to fill in the possible cultural gap respect to man;
• the effects of the existent distorsions in the financial system, and in particular those concerning the relationship between business and banking system, stand out above all during the first years of the business' life, but after a few years of the business' activity, it can be supposed that the same inefficiency's elements will end up by favouring the existent enterprises respect to the new initiatives;
• the presence of financial operators, specialised in the financing of enterprises during the development and consolidation phase, will be able to guarantee the needed financial contributions to the deserving business.

The typology of financial operations being subject of the guarantee should be as extended as possible, and it should have to include the utilisation of the most innovating instruments, in order that the fund can really contribute to the spreading of a new financial culture amongst the entrepreneurs.

Finally, the operating validity and the diffusion of the Guarantee Fund for the female entrepreneurship is subordinate to an effective promotion and information activity on the intervention's modality of this instrument among the interested individuals, but above all amongst the enterprises, so that they can realise the real benefits and avoid the misinformation (deriving from the lack or distorted knowledge) which as a matter of fact has limited the operating activity of the previous Guarantee Funds.