Women Entrepreneurship at a Glance

Entrepreneurship and Women Entrepreneurship in Global Context

During the last few decades, recognition has been given to the importance of women's entrepreneurship as a prerequisite for household-level poverty alleviation, national economic development, and the empowerment of women (Mayoux 2001a). Entrepreneurship, further specifying women entrepreneurship has become a buzz word for the developing and least developed countries. The term 'entrepreneur' means one who 'undertakes the organization and management of an enterprise involving innovativeness, independence and risk, as well as the opportunity for profit' (Timmons and Spinelli, 2006). Innovation enables an entrepreneur to venture into new technology, products, and markets, while independence and risk-taking is required in every stage of the business from start­ up to expansion (Ming-Yen 2007). One will have to agree that leadership and innovativeness, besides other characters, is extremely important for an entrepreneur to become successful. What drove the tsunami of women entrepreneurship for us then? A focus on women entrepreneurship has been particularly strong in low-income countries since the Micro-Credit Summit in Washington in 1997.

The post Summit era resulted in an alteration in development projects and government policies in many developing countries. Women entrepreneurship, thus got underlined as a key strategy for both poverty reduction and empowerment. The summit made most of the people realize and infer that a bigger challenge named poverty can be handled with one of the finest tools called women entrepreneurship as she has more grass-rooted relations compared to men. According to some, women entrepreneurship is recognized as a crucial way to fight against poverty and gender inequity in society, and acts as a vehicle in the promotion of empowerment and leadership for women (UNIFEM 2000).  However, critics also suggest that the conflation of women empowerment and entrepreneurship has resulted in a 'magic-bullet' approach to development which, far from empowering women, subjects them to the disciplinary power of the market (Lairap-Fonderson, 2002).

In the 20th century, when the ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism re-surged with the extensive economic liberalization policies like privatization, fiscal austerity, etc. neo-liberal ideas of market-led   growth promote the development of women entrepreneurship, mainly because they are seen as harder workers and better at meeting credit repayments than men (Rogaly 1996). Culturally too, women are considered as harder workers compared to men in an addition to being ethical. However, women entrepreneurship may have an insignificant effect on generating meaningful and sustainable employment opportunities for women, and an even lesser effect on the country's economic advancement and its entrenched gender relations (Mayoux 2001b).

In a study paper by Das (2000), the suggestion has been loud and clear that women entrepreneurs can be categorized into three types:

'Chance' entrepreneurs, who start their business without clear goals - their business may have evolved from hobbies or been passed to them by a family member. 'Forced' entrepreneurs, who have been compelled to start their business because of financial circumstances. 'Created', or 'pulled' entrepreneurs, who were motivated through entrepreneurship programs, or who were looking for a challenge and wanted to build their own identity, develop leadership skills, and contribute to society through their venture.

It would not be an exception when I say that because there are relatively few veteran women entrepreneurs, there tends to be little solidarity within their group. Due to the reason, their network is not established to the same degree as with male entrepreneurs. A high degree of group solidarity or cohesion within such a marginal group is taken to be very important to counteract whatever opposition may be forthcoming from mainstream groups within the larger social system (O'Donnell et al. 2001). They either need to network very well among their circle of same gender or should be capable enough to network and get shoulder-in-shoulder with male counterparts to flourish the business. Women are generally low risk-takers, due to their primary responsibility for dependents (Goffee and Sease 1985). Risk taking and risk-aversion are two dimensions when we usually talk about the risk and the behavior associated. Men, for whatever reasons, have been the risk-takers whereas women, on similar grounds, are taken as risk-averters.

Women Entrepreneurship in Nepal

To understand the difficulties women face, a general glance of Nepal's development level, through the composite indices contained in the 2014/2015 Human Development Reports has to be taken. The statistics from the reports will depict the low level of development for the country as a whole. The Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.548 ranks Nepal 146th out of 188 countries, while the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) value of 0.126 designates Nepal to be one of the least developed countries.  The Gender Development Index (GDI) further reveals the positioning of women in society with a score of 0.908. Nepal ranks 145 out of 188 countries in the GDI, and is ranked 86 out of 93 countries in the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). The MPI also showed a large regional disparity in poverty outcomes, as poverty in the Far Western region in 2011 stood at 59.1 percent against 33.4 percent in the Western region.

To align with the 1995 Beijing Declaration, the government adopted the rhetoric of women's participation, and introduced various gender-based initiatives, increased micro-finance support systems, and created an opening for the introduction of gender policies and programs in many government bodies and NGOs. The trend has not stopped though. These days also you find several institutions receiving the funds in the name of women empowerment, many brought about by the women entrepreneurship, but delivering poorer results. Measures to address gender-specific barriers to women's entrepreneurship include gender-equity measures, such as equal access for both men and women to education and skill-training in business management, which were legislated since the Tenth Five-Year Plan (National Planning Commission 2002).

Currently, in Asia, nearly one-third of new small enterprises are being set up by women, and in many cases these businesses are creating employment faster than the countries' domestic averages (Thapa 2004). However, although their combined contribution to the national economy is estimated at 40 per cent of the GDP, they remain the largest under-represented group in terms of visibility as owners of enterprises (De Gobbi 2005). It   is   a tough job   to   accurately   estimate   the   current   number   of   women entrepreneurs in Nepal, reasons being, the absence of up-to-date statistics and gender dis-aggregated data. In an addition to it, the statistics does not even talk about who actually controls and runs women's businesses: even though women may be officially registered as owners of a business. In several cases, it is the husband or father who is operating the business. This ‘surrogate entrepreneurship’ - a phrase coined by Ganesan (2003) - makes the task of accurately capturing the number of actual women entrepreneurs very difficult.

Challenges of Women Entrepreneurship

To be precise, it is extremely challenging to become an entrepreneur in developing countries, where women are traditionally regarded as caretakers of the family. They tend to be very penurious in terms of education and financial capital. But, to look at it from other side that women are limited due to a lack of these opportunities gives them a strong incentive to create their own work environments; to circumvent poverty, and gain confidence, courage/ and independence. The dependence of their success and performance is on their motivations for starting their business, their social learning, and their environmental influences within their business context.

Access to financial support is critical for successful entrepreneurship for both men and women (Aldrich and Zimmer 1986). In papers, women are equal to men in access to credit in Nepal but on the grounds, cultural and social barriers sternly limit the access for women. Collateral, which has to be mainly land, is a necessity to obtain a loan from banks and other financial institutions. As a legacy, the patrilineal inheritance system to property is the law. From 2007, nevertheless, provisions have been made whereby the law and bylaws stipulate equal rights for both daughters and sons to the family property from birth, without restriction after marriage. But the story does not look different because of deeply embedded cultural beliefs; daughters are only very rarely given a deed to family land, and after marriage they are, in most cases, not considered at all.

Since over the past decade, though women education and training has been prioritized in Nepal, women's literacy remains far below that of men. The male and female literacy rate in Nepal is 71.6% and 44.5% respectively with a Gender Parity Index (GPI) at 0.62; women lagging behind men by whopping 27%. (GoN, 2014). As seen in this research, lack of literacy restricts women's access to opportunities, limits their ability to negotiate the bureaucracies of finance and government, and often prevents them from effectively voicing their opinions.

The networks that majority of women entrepreneurs are part of tend to be based on face-to-face communication among dealers and customers who endorse their products by convincing others to try them. As a result, most of the women undertake what is described as 'comfort zone movement' - they tend to operate only among clients they know. Products are sold to relatives and their friends, and suppliers tend to be people they know through family or other close connections (Timmons and Spinelli 2006). Majority of the women have not been trained in participating in a marketplace, or in tapping new markets.

What needs to be done then?

There are several areas for improvement on behalf of public themselves, government and the concerned institutions. Some of the major recommendations could be, as drawn from above:

Provide access to better financial services to the women entrepreneurs so that they can flourish further and at least come leveled to the men entrepreneurs. This will at least give them opportunity to exercise their strength of business.

Education to women has already been priority of the government but that has to be escalated further.

The networking skills of the women entrepreneurs need to be improved and such training and skill development programs need to be launched.

 

Last but not the least, number of years and amount of time spent would not make much difference unless the support from supply side and innovativeness from demand side is promoted, in addition to several other factors.

References

Aldrich, H. and S.  Zimmer (1986) ‘Entrepreneurship through social networks’, in D.L. Sexton and R.W. Ballinger (eds.) The Art and Science of Entrepreneurship, Cambridge MA: Ballinger Pub Co

Das, D. J. (2000) 'Problems faced by women entrepreneurs', in K. Sasikumar (ed.) Women Entrepreneurship, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House

De Gobbi, M. (2005) 'Nepal and Pakistan, Micro-finance and Microenterprise Development: Their Contribution to the Economic Empowerment of Women', SEED Working Paper No. 69, Geneva, International Labour Office

Ganesan, S. (2003) Status of Women Entrepreneurs in India, New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers

Goffee, R. and R. Sease (1985) Women in Change: The Experiences of Female Entrepreneurs, London: Allen & Unwin

Human Development Report (2015) United Nations Development Programme, http:/ I hdrstats.undp.org/countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_NPL.html  

Lairap-Fonderson, J. (2002) 'The disciplinary power of micro credit: examples from Kenya and Cameroon’, in J.  Parpart, S.  Rai, and K.  Staudt (2002) Rethinking   Empowerment: Gender and Development in a Global/Local World, New York Routledge

Mayoux, L. (2001a) ‘Enabling Environments for Women’s Enterprise:  Challenges and Ways', Social Finance Unit, International Labour Office, Geneva

Mayoux, L. (200lb) Beyond Rhetoric: Women's Empowerment and Micro-Enterprise Development, London and New York: Zed Press

Mayoux, L. (2003) 'From marginalization to empowerment: towards a new approach in enterprise development’, available   at:  www.intercooperation.ch/sed/2003/wks-sed­ and-empowerment/presentations/mayoux.pdf (last checked July 2008)

Ming-Yen, W. (2007) ‘Theorizing a framework of factors influencing performance of women entrepreneurs in Malaysia', Journal of Asia Entrepreneurship and Sustainability 3(2)

National Planning Commission (2002) 'The Tenth Five Year Plan (2003-2007)', Nepal Government, National Planning Commission Secretariat

O'Donnell, A., A. Gilmore, D. Cummins, and D. Carson (2001) 'The network construct in entrepreneurship research: a review and critique', Journal of Management Decision 26(9)

Rogaly B. (1996) 'Micro-finance evangelism, “destitute women”, and the hard selling of a new anti-poverty formula', Development in Practice 6(2)

Thapa, A. (2004) 'On women's enterprise and regional cooperation in SAARC', Spotlight, Kathmandu: March 19-25

Timmons, J.A. and S. Spinelli (2006) New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century, Singapore: McGraw-Hill

UNIFEM (2000) 'Statement on Progress of the World's Women', New York