It is known that women throughout history have waged the greatest struggle for fundamental rights, and the consequences of this are visible in a smaller number of companies owned by women. The aim of the study was to theoretically determine the existing barriers of development and survival of women's entrepreneurship and to empirically investigate the level of their presence among women entrepreneurs and craftswomen in the Republic of Croatia. The theoretical part of the study describes the characteristics of women entrepreneurs and the characteristics of their ventures, as well as research conducted by Croatian and world scientists who have analyzed and documented this problem during the 20th and 21st century. The biggest limitations are the traditional view of the role of women in society, the perception of non-risk-taking by women entrepreneurs, lack of knowledge, experience and professional development, as well as financing of women entrepreneurs and the lack of female role models. The empirical part of the study deals with the collection of primary data on the existence of barriers to the development and survival of women's entrepreneurship in the Republic of Croatia based on the average assessment of the presence of barriers of 37 respondents and depending on their socio-demographic characteristics. The research found that the biggest barriers for women entrepreneurs were related to financing of entrepreneurial ventures and insufficient state activity in encouraging female entrepreneurship, while the smallest barriers for female entrepreneurship were related to finding employees and insufficient knowledge and skills of women entrepreneurs.