The Challenges of Growing Small Businesses - International Labour ...

networking skills for business. Indeed, in the Tanzanian sample the women noted that the
skills and competencies acquired prior to starting their business played a critical role in
facilitating start-up (ILO, 2003b p. 22). Once again this background does not concur with
the perceived “average” profile of women entrepreneurs in African countries, as portrayed
by the WED Study preliminary (secondary) research.
4.1.4 Family status
Much is said about how women entrepreneurs are constrained by their multiple roles
within the family and community, and the various responsibilities and restrictions that arise
from and accompany these roles. The majority (64 per cent) of the women interviewed in
the WED Study were married at the time of the study – 69 per cent in Tanzania, 63 per
cent in Ethiopia and 60 per cent in Zambia – and most had been married before starting a
business. Only in Zambia were there women in polygamous marriages (4 per cent). In
both Ethiopia (11 per cent) and Zambia (18 per cent), there were notably more widows
than Tanzania (3 per cent). In Zambia these widows had found themselves as single heads
of households following the death of their spouses, and had mostly started a business to
help generate household income. In Ethiopia, 21 per cent of the women entrepreneurs
were single compared to 14 per cent in Zambia and 19 per cent in Tanzania, and most of
these were less than 30 years old. The Ethiopian researchers felt that stimulus for business
ownership for this “single” group was associated with the high levels of unemployment
experienced in Ethiopia, where younger people had few employment options and had to
turn to self-employment.
Nearly all of the women interviewed in the study had children. In Tanzania, 85 per
cent (109) of the women had children, with 32 per cent (35) of those having more children
than the Tanzanian national household average of four children. In Ethiopia where the
average household size is 4.8 (see CSA, 1995), the average number of children of the
women surveyed was six. In Zambia, only 22 per cent (26) of the women entrepreneurs
had more than six children, the equivalent of the national average fertility rate (CSO et al,
1996), with the majority (72 per cent) of the entrepreneurs having four or less children.
In addition to their children, nearly all of the women entrepreneurs interviewed had
other dependents in their households. In Tanzania, 54 per cent (70) of the women
interviewed lived in extended families. In Zambia, 64 per cent of the women interviewed
had dependents at home in addition to their immediate family – the average had two to
three additional household members, and six of the women had six or more dependants. In
Ethiopia, the circumstances of the women varied greatly: three women had no children or
dependents, and yet one woman lived within a 15-person household. The average
household size of the Ethiopian women was six persons.
From this data, it is clear that the majority of the women entrepreneurs in the WED
Study, like most of their peers, had household and reproductive responsibilities to fulfil in
addition to developing their own business. In this respect they have experienced, and
presumably are still experiencing, the typical constraints on their time and mobility
associated with these responsibilities, as emphasized in most of the previous research on
women entrepreneurs.
Whilst the primary research findings reported later in this report reveal that such
constraints had indeed been experienced, the findings also reveal that many of the women
entrepreneurs in this WED Study benefited positively from the support of their family
through receiving financial, moral and practical support. In this respect the family set-up
was experienced more as a social asset for business, rather than as a source of hindrance or
constraint.
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