EMPREENDEDORISMO COMO ESTRATÉGIA DE COMBATE ÀS DESIGUALDADES?

Dissonâncias entre o Programa Empreender-PB e a proteção social do trabalho

Abstract

In recent decades, neoliberal-oriented policies have been implemented through the weakening of the State’s role in promoting social protection and reducing inequalities, in parallel with the formulation of public policies encouraging entrepreneurship, which transfer to individuals the responsibility for their productive insertion and for overcoming situations of social vulnerability. In this context, the present study analyzes the Empreender-PB program with the aim of examining to what extent it is embedded in the entrepreneurial rhetoric associated with precarization and informality, as well as whether it constitutes an effective strategy of productive insertion and upward social mobility for the women workers covered by the program. The analysis is based on a literature review and interviews with managers and beneficiaries of the policy. It is concluded that Empreender-PB contributes to the development of enterprises but holds beneficiaries responsible for factors of a structural origin and naturalizes labor precariousness. At the same time, the dependence on informal support networks and other social policies indicates that entrepreneurship rarely sustains itself as a strategy capable of producing social mobility and full autonomy.