دانلود رایگان مقاله جنسیت و محدودیت کارآفرینی در آفریقا

Abstract

This paper contributes to closing a knowledge gap on gender, entrepreneurship and development by linking the entrepreneurial productivity to start-up capital and skills. The empirical analysis of a survey of entrepreneurs in Swaziland confirmed the importance of start-up capital for sales. Women entrepreneurs have smaller start-up capital and are less likely to fund it from the formal sector than their men counterparts, pointing to a possible room for policy interventions. Further, business training is positively associated with sales performance of men entrepreneurs, but has no effect on women. However, this does not call for abolishing training programs for women entrepreneurs. Instead their design and targeting should be revisited.

5. Conclusions

This paper contributes to the empirical literature on constraints to women's entrepreneurship in Africa with evidence from Swaziland. To the extent that women have fewer entrepreneurial skills and are more constrained accessing start-up capital than men, they are likely to face greater challenges opening new businesses and hence be less engaged in productive entrepreneurship. These findings could support government measures geared toward women entrepreneurs, especially in societies where equity factors are important. We tested these hypotheses on data from a survey of entrepreneurs in Swaziland. Our empirical analysis confirmed the critical role of start-up capital for sales performance of both men and women, under various model specification and throughout the sale distribution. In Swaziland, women entrepreneurs have lower start-up capital and more limited access to finance it from the formal sector than men, even when sectoral differences are taken into account. The results suggest that policy interventions aiming to promote entrepreneurship in general and female one in particular should go beyond strengthening the overall business environment and include pro-active measures such as subsidies or loan guarantees for start-up capital. Empirical analysis showed that narrow business training for women has a limited success, even though it is associated with better sales among men. Broader training for women entrepreneurs encompassing business and technical skills as well as soft skills could be more effective.