The EU agenda strongly promotes entrepreneurship (Corbett 2005; Papatsiba 2009). The responsibly for earning a livelihood has increasingly become individualised, and self-employment is strongly emphasised. Creating new business and services is seen as a way of keeping the unemployment levels low and thus an intact or even improved living standard in the European countries. There is a special confidence in that the university graduated should be at the frontline in creating these new employment possibilities (NIRAS Consultants et al 2008; Teixeira & Davey 2010). However, the liberal, strongly individualised discourse neglects the influence from existing structures in society. One very influential structure is the gender division (Acker, 1990; Ridgeway, 1997), it permeates among others, the educational system and labour market, and it does so both horizontally and vertically. For example; women make up the majority within social sciences, education and health care (SOU 2004; Lindberg, Riis, & Silander 2005). Professionals educated within these fields more often find employments within the public sector, a comparatively large sector in Sweden. This means that men, who make up the majority within the field of technology, more often are employed by the private sector. It also means that the men are more likely to become entrepreneurs than women (SCB 2003; Marinez et al 2007). Technological expertise is demanded by a sector not as subsidized as the public sector and not as circumscribed by public authorisation as for example education and health care are. Moreover, self-employment within the field of technology is also more likely to provide the individual with a profit from which they can support themselves.

In this study, we argue that the rhetoric about increasing need for entrepreneurs and for new businesses is not a neutral urge, the circumstances for men and women to become entrepreneurs are so different because of their different fields of knowledge. Moreover, higher education students are less incentive to become self-employed because of their, since long directed purpose, to become civil servants. Thus, entrepreneurial spirit is not an individual inherited characteristic; that you either have or do not have; conversely, it is highly dependent on societal structures (From 2010). We suggest that the increased demand for entrepreneurial education within higher education is in opposition to the Humboltian university tradition and contributes to changes in power and control over what’s counts as educational knowledge (Bernstein 2000; Kwiek 2008). As in any other social activity, gender is of crucial importance for the understanding of the new policy directions.

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