eco.docx

Breaking The Glass Ceiling: Empowering Women Entrepreneurs In Developing Economies
Abstract
Gender equality is key to a country's economic, social and democratic development as it generates higher growth outcomes and lower poverty. Despite strong evidence of the vast benefits of women's empowerment, Women entrepreneurship represents a vast untapped source of innovation, job creation and economic growth in the developing world. The barriers to women's entrepreneurship are various: Women face greater obstacles in accessing credit, training, networks and information, as well as legal and policy constraints. The World Economic Forum shows little progress in narrowing the economic gap between women and men.

Women's entrepreneurship is both about women's position in society and the role of entrepreneurship in the same society. Women are faced with specific obstacles (such as family responsibilities) that have to be overcome in order to give them access to the same opportunities as men. Also, in some countries, women may experience obstacles with respect to holding property and entering contracts. Increased participation of women in the labour force is a prerequisite for improving the position of women in society and self-employed women.
A Woman's traditional role has changed during the last century to include movement towards gender equality. Female-run enterprises are steadily growing all over the world, contributing to household incomes and growth of national economies. However, women face time, human, physical, and social constraints that limit their ability to grow their businesses.
The overarching goal of this research proposal is to inform policy makers , public and private sector leaders about the potential impact of women's economic empowerment in developing countries and emerging markets, increase their understanding of some of the issues, challenges, and opportunities faced by these women, and ultimately inspire them to action. It aims to includes any activity undertaken to strengthen women's economic empowerment – from business practices that contribute to advancing the status of women to advocacy and philanthropic efforts with an explicit gender component.

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1.1 Introduction

After selling 500 Papads( Crispy savoury made with lentils and spices)after several hours of labour,When they finally received 80Rupees( Current day USD 1.5), they were trembling. The money burnt their fingers. Tears rolled down their faces. they had never seen so much money in their lives. They never imagined it in her hands. She carried the bills as she would a delicate bird or a rabbit, until someone advised them to put the money away in a safe place lest it be stolen.This was the beginning for almost every Woman in India who struggled to start her own business in the past three decades. All their lives they had been treated as liabilities, drilled to think that women bring only misery to their families, and that their parents cannot afford to pay their dowries. Many times they heard their fathers tell them that they should have been killed at birth, aborted, or starved. To their family they have been nothing but another mouth to feed, another dowry to pay. But that fateful day, for the first time in their lives, a person had trusted them with a great sum of money. They promised that will never let down the person or themselves. They struggled to make sure that every penny earned made a difference.Such was the determination of 7 women to create a sustainable livelihood, when they started Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad,with the seed capital of 80 Rupees, popularly known as Lijjat, an Indian Women's Cooperative involved in manufacturing of various FMCG and at today's date they provide employment to 53000 women and is estimated to be over 100 million USD.

At the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony three women's rights advocates shared the Award. In its announcement speech, the committee recognised that they coudn't achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtained the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all echelons of society. Gender equality is key to a country's economic, social and democratic development as it generates higher growth outcomes and lower poverty. The World Economic Forum's 2011 Global Gender Gap report, which compares equality between men and women across the world, found that in countries where the gender gap is smallest, there is greater productivity and economic competitiveness. Despite strong evidence of the benefits of women's empowerment, many women remain poorer and less educated, face greater risks and have access to fewer opportunities than men.
Thus far, most of the work on women's empowerment in emerging countries has been undertaken by government and international aid organisations. For example, the internationally agreed UN Millennium Development Goals, which set targets for addressing some of the world's biggest development challenges by 2015, recognised gender equality as one of eight goals. More specifically, Goal number 3 - 'Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women' - addressed the issue of eliminating gender disparity in education by 2015.
The area has, to date, received relatively low priority on corporate agendas. However, there is a strong argument for the private sector to become more involved. Arguably, corporate initiatives have more power to bring about change – both financially, and through leveraging brand influence – than government or non-governmentalorganisations (NGOs). While an increasing number of multinationals turn their focus to developing countries as the new high growth markets, gender disparities represent serious obstacles for businesses and investors. The business benefits of investing in women are evident across the world. Not only do skilled women represent a pool from which to hire, they are also a significant, and in many developing countries, largely untapped market of consumers. As such, there are clear business benefits if companies think creatively about how to manage their business through an innovation 'lens' of gender.
Today, women entrepreneurs account for up to a third of all businesses operating in the formal economy worldwide. However, the majority of those in developing and transitioning economies are very small and micro enterprises, with little potential for growth. Apart from being under-represented in enterprises of all sizes, the bigger the firm the less likely it is to be headed by a woman. Societal attitudes and norms inhibit some women from even considering starting a business, while systemic barriers mean that many women entrepreneurs stay confined to very small businesses often operating in the informal economy. This not only limits their ability to earn an income for themselves and their families but impedes them from realising their full potential to contribute to socio-economic development, job creation and environmental stewardship.
The ILO estimated that while 22 per cent of men's productive potential is underutilized, women's is as high as 50 per cent. ( ILO, 2016).
Removing barriers, such as discriminatory property and inheritance laws, discriminatory customary laws, poor access to formal financial institutions, and time constraints due to family and household responsibilities, could create greater opportunities for sustainable enterprises run by women. This in turn would contribute to women's economic empowerment and gender equality as well as job creation.Further, investing in women is one of the most effective means of increasing equality and promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth. Investments in women-specific programmes can achieve significant ripple effects for development, since women generally spend more of their income on the health, education and well-being of their families and communities than men do. While targeted measures can bridge the gap for women, in parallel it is also essential to remove discriminatory aspects of economic and social policies, programmes and practices that may impede women's full participation in the economy and society.

1.2 Literature review

While without a doubt the economic impact of women is substantial, we still lack a reliable picture, describing in detail that specific impact. Recent efforts initiated by the OECD (1997, 2000) still display this lack of knowledge and need to focus on the attention of policy makers on this important topic. In order to effectively and efficiently address this topic, policy makers need more knowledge about women entrepreneurs. The aim of this research proposal is to extend these efforts and to further enhance knowledge about how women's entrepreneurship affects economic growth and development.
Women's entrepreneurship needs to be studied separately for two main reasons. The first reason is that women's entrepreneurship has been recognised during the last decade as an important untapped source of economic growth. Women entrepreneurs create new jobs for themselves and others and by being different also provide society with different solutions to management, organisation and business problems as well as to the exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. However, they still represent a minority of all entrepreneurs. Thus there exists a market failure discriminating against women's possibility to become entrepreneurs and their possibility to become successful entrepreneurs. This market failure needs to be addressed by policy makers so that the economic potential of this group can be fully utilised. While without a doubt the economic impact of women is substantial, we still lack a reliable picture describing in detail that specific impact.
The second reason is that the topic of women in entrepreneurship has been largely neglected both in society in general and in the social sciences.(Brush & Hisrich, 1999; Holmquist & Sundin, 2002). Not only have women lower participation rates in entrepreneurship than men but they also generally choose to start and manage firms in different industries than men tend to do. (Duchénaut, 1997; Franco & Winqvist, 2002; Reynolds & White, 1997).
The industries (primarily retail, education and other service industries) chosen by women are often perceived as being less important to economic development and growth than high-technology and manufacturing.

Furthermore, mainstream research, policies and programmes tend to be "men streamed" and too often do not take into account the specific needs of women entrepreneurs and would-be women entrepreneurs. As a consequence, equal opportunity between men and women from the perspective of entrepreneurship is still not a reality. In order for policy makers to address the situation further research is required. In order to realise the benefits of policy changes it is important to incorporate a women entrepreneurial dimension in considering all SMEs and growth policies (e.g. meeting women's financing needs at all stages of the business continuum; take-up of business development and support services; access to corporate, government and international markets; technology access and utilisation; R&D and innovation; etc.). Moreover this also requires periodical evaluation of the impact of these measures on the success of women-owned businesses and exchange of good models and best practices, through cooperation with leading international organisations such as the OECD, European Union, APEC, UNCTAD and the ILO, in order to continually improve policies and programmes. Better qualitative information and quantitative data and statistics are required to profile women entrepreneurs (demographic information, barriers to start-up and growth). This would also assist in promoting awareness of the role of women entrepreneurs in the economy.
Women's entrepreneurship is both about women's position in society and the role of entrepreneurship in the same society. Women are faced with specific obstacles (such as family responsibilities) that have to be overcome in order to give them access to the same opportunities as men. Also, in some countries, women may experience obstacles with respect to holding property and entering contracts. Increased participation of women in the labour force is a prerequisite for improving the position of women in society and self-employed women.
Women entrepreneur networks will become sources of knowledge about women's entrepreneurship if they are prioritised upon and gradually may become recognised as a valuable tool for its development and promotion. Policy makers need to foster the networking of associations and encourage co-operation and partnerships among national and international networks and facilitate entrepreneurial endeavours by women in the economy. Hence, further research on these aspects are inevitably required.

1.3 Research questions
Questions to address during research and are as follows:

What do we know about women entrepreneurs?
What are the constraints affecting women's entry into entrepreneurship and/or the growth of their enterprises?
Are women legally able to own property and other assets? Are women able to open bank accounts?
Are women generally less/better educated than men on average? Which type of education do they receive?
How are childcare responsibility, assistance to the elders, and other household tasks distributed within the household?
What gender-disaggregated data needs to be collected?


1.4 Research Methodology and Tools

The Research Methodology will be a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, which will comprise of these 6 components
1. Literature review
2. Brain storming session
3. Focus group discussions
4. Key Informant Interviews
5. Case Studies
6. Sample Survey using a statistical package

1.5 Conclusions and Recommendations

The world is changing rapidly and to maintain that change we need women entrepreneurs to play an important role in the entrepreneurial economy, both in their ability to create jobs for themselves and to create jobs for others. Furthermore, self-employment represents one of the most important job opportunities for women. This seems to be a correct conclusion independent of what country or type of economy is observed. Self-employment represents an important job alternative for many women and perhaps especially for women in developing economies. It is also observed that in all countries women still represent a minority of those that start new firms, are self-employed, or are small business owner-managers.
However, the availability of data is still scarce. To begin with, definitional issues complicate data collection. Furthermore, some national systems prohibit statistics on the individual level, making gender specific analyses impossible. Even in those few countries where data are available, important information on development over time (panel data) and for the whole population are missing.
Longitudinal data are needed to understand survival and growth among entrepreneurs (men and women), as well as time of entry and exit from business. This is especially important for women entrepreneurs, as (based on current knowledge) the obstacles and challenges they face change with their involvement in the entrepreneurial process. More precisely, as a woman evolves through the entrepreneurial process she will face different obstacles related to the specific stage she is in (opportunity identification, opportunity exploitation and resource acquisition for example). Depending on the nature of those obstacles, only certain categories of women will enter into business and succeed. Consequently, longitudinal data are also very important for monitoring the effectiveness and impact of programmes and initiatives. Currently, the general picture is still based on cross-sectional samples, and both the scope and the breadth of data available have not made much difference during the last few years.

This Research can further be enhanced if we listen to the voice of women entrepreneurs, Promote the development of women entrepreneur networks and ameliorate upon the factual and analytical underpinnings of our understanding of the role of women entrepreneurs in the economy.
1.6 References and Bibliography
Works Cited
Brush, C., & Hisrich, R. D. 1999. Women-owned businesses: Why do they matter? In Z. J. Acs (Ed.), Are Small Firms Important? Their Role and Impact: 111-127. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publisher.
Duchénaut, B. 1997. Women entrepreneurs in SMEs. Rennes, France: Euro PME
Franco, A., & Winqvist, K. 2002. The entrepreneurial gap between women and men. Brussells: Eurostat: Statistics in Focus.
ILO. 2016a. South East Asian Women Entrepreneurs: Going for growth. Geneva: International Labour Office
Holmquist, C., & Sundin, E. (Eds.). 2002. Företagerskan: Om kvinnor och entreprenörskap. Stockholm: SNS Förlag.
OECD. 2000. Women Entrepreneurs in SMEs: Realising the Benifits of Globalisation and the Knowledge-Based Economy. Paris: OECD.
Reynolds, P. D., & White, S. B. 1997. The Entrepreneurial Process: Economic Growth, Men, Women, and Minorities. Westport, Connecticut: Quorum Books.
Works Consulted
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Gallaway, J. H., & Bernasek, A. 2002. Gender and informal sector employment in Indonesia. Journal of Economic Issues, 36(2): 313-321.
Gartner, W. B. 1988. "Who is an entrepreneur?" is the wrong question. American Journal of Small Business, 12(4): 11- 32.
Gatewood, E. J., Carter, N. M., Brush, C. G., Greene, P. G., & Hart, M. M. (Eds.). 2003. Women Entrepreneurs, Their Ventures, and the Venture Capital Industry: An Annotated Bibliography. Stockholm: ESBRI.
George, G., & Baker, T. Work in progress. Women and entrepreneurship: Evaluating the role of government policy in different economic and social contexts. Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship, University of Wisconsin- Madison WI.
ILO. 2003a. Ethopian Women Entrepreneurs: Going for Growth. Geneva: International Labour Office.
ILO. 2003b. Tanzanian Women Entrepreneurs: Going for Growth. Geneva: International Labour Office.
ILO. 2003c. Zambian Women Entrepreneurs: Going for growth. Geneva: International Labour Office.
Malecki, E. J. 1994. Entrepreneurship in regional and local development. International Regional Science Review, 16(1): 119-153.
Matthews, C. H., & Moser, S. B. 1995. Family Background and gender: implications for interest in small firm ownership. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 7: 365-377.
Milgram, B. L. 2001. Operationalizing microfinance: Women and craftwork in Ifugao, Uland Philippines. Human Organization, 60(3): 212-224.
OECD. 1994. The OECD Jobs Study: Taxation, Employment and Unemployment. Paris: OECD.
OECD. 1995. Employment Outlook. Paris: OECD.
Ramachandran, K., & Rammarayan, S. 1993. Entrepreneurial orientation and networking: Some indian evidence. Journal of Business Venturing, 8: 513-524.


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