Growth and dynamics of women entrepreneurs in Southern Africa

Major findings are as follows. (1) Women"s enterprises are as long-lasting as men"s, but their employment growth rates are for the most part significantly lower. Women"s enterprises remain the same in size -- one to two employees -- regardless of sector or location along the rural-urban continuum, while men"s enterprises exhibit a fairly regular increase in number of employees with increase in market size. Nor have female entrepreneurs used access to credit and training to increase firm employment to the same extent that men have. (2) The most often cited problem of female entrepreneurs is inadequate market demand; for males, financial problems are more paramount. (3) Women"s enterprises tend to be home-based, while men"s tend to be located in central business districts. Women"s enterprises are also more concentrated in a narrow range of subsectors and in far more traditional and less dynamic product markets than men"s. Typically, women operate in markets that are shrinking rather than growing. The data underscore the importance of market demand to female entrepreneurs -- and the relative lack of attention paid to this issue in the women in development literature. The data also reveal the apparent inelasticity of women"s firms to increases in market size and access to credit and training, possibly indicating that female entrepreneurs have different business objectives than men. Includes bibliography.