Purpose
Contrasting two countries with different gender regimes and welfare states, Sweden and Tanzania, this paper aims to analyse how the institutional context affects the ways in which a neo-liberal reform agenda is translated into institutional changes and propose how such changes impact the preconditions for women’s entrepreneurship.

Design/methodology/approach
This study uses document analysis and previous studies to describe and analyse the institutions and the institutional changes. This paper uses Scandinavian institutional theory as the interpretative framework.

Findings
This study proposes that: in well-developed welfare states with a high level of gender equality, consequences of neo-liberal agenda for the preconditions for women entrepreneurs are more likely to be negative than positive. In less developed states with a low level of gender equality, the gendered consequences of neo-liberal reforms may be mixed and the preconditions for women’s entrepreneurship more positive than negative. How neo-liberalism impacts preconditions for women entrepreneurs depend on the institutional framework in terms of a trustworthy women-friendly state and level of gender equality.

Research limitations/implications
The study calls for bringing the effects on the gender of the neo-liberal primacy of market solutions out of the black box. Studying how women entrepreneurs perceive these effects necessitates qualitative ethnographic data.

Originality/value
This paper demonstrates why any discussion of the impact of political or economic reforms on women’s entrepreneurship must take a country’s specific institutional context into account. Further, previous studies on neo-liberalism have rarely taken an interest in Africa.