Scientific Evolution of Women in Entrepreneurial Finance: Intellectual Structure, Thematic Development, and Future Research Agenda (2006–2026)

Abstract

Access to finance remains a significant challenge for women entrepreneurs, even as new financial alternatives and technologies have emerged. This study examines how research on women’s entrepreneurial finance evolved between 2006 and 2026. Using Bibliometrix and Biblioshiny, 327 articles retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science were analyzed in terms of scientific development, intellectual structure, thematic evolution, and international collaboration, including network centrality, density, and comparisons across economic-development groups. The results show that the field has moved from a primary focus on gender and access to capital toward a broader agenda in which financial inclusion, crowdfunding, microfinance, and digitalization have gained prominence. At the same time, traditional research streams on gender and finance coexist with research on alternative mechanisms for accessing capital. Three complementary intellectual foundations were identified: gender-related mechanisms in financing decisions, crowdfunding and alternative entrepreneurial finance, and structural and institutional conditions shaping access to financial resources. International collaboration also differs across economic contexts, with high-income economies showing denser and more internationally connected research networks. The findings reveal an expanding field in which new financial opportunities coexist with persistent gender inequalities and provide an integrated basis for future research on AI-enabled financing, cross-context institutional differences, and green and sustainable finance.