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

In Ethiopia 85 per cent of the women entrepreneurs are engaged in their business fulltime,
while the remainder have employment elsewhere and get others in to manage the
business. Seventy per cent of the women said that they did not pay themselves a wage on a
regular basis, rather they took out drawings when they needed money, when there were
funds to take, and when they decided not to reinvest the money back into the business.
The average salary the women paid themselves was Birr 850 per month, the equivalent of
$100, which is comparable to the lower end of a public sector salary in Ethiopia.
In Tanzania all of the women entrepreneurs were fully engaged in their business and,
as noted earlier, a significant number of the women (46 per cent) were running more than
one business. No specific details were given as regards drawings from the business,
although the case studies revealed that the women used income from the business to
increase the household’s standard of living.
4.5.3 Decision-making in the business
The research found that in almost all cases the women entrepreneurs were the primary
decision makers in their business. This was not too surprising as it had been one of the
criteria for qualifying a business for inclusion in the WED Study.
In Ethiopia the majority of the women entrepreneurs make all of the decisions in their
business (69 per cent in microenterprises and 61 per cent in small enterprises), and the
remainder take business decisions with their spouse. Interestingly a higher proportion said
that they made all of the decisions as regards the utilization of money in the business – 76
per cent in microenterprises and 83 per cent of small enterprises. Four per cent said they
faced particular problems with decisions for their business, and most of these problems
concerned making decisions about financing the business and marketing-related issues.
In Zambia the situation was similar, with 71 per cent of the women entrepreneurs
saying that they make the business decisions alone, a further 24 per cent do so with their
spouse, but three women said that their spouses took the main decisions for the business.
In Tanzania the research showed that women were making decisions for their
business, but it also highlighted some of the gender issues concerning this area of
enterprise management. The case studies in particular revealed that spouses were involved
in some decision-making, not because the women felt it was necessary, but because some
of the officials and business people who deal with the women entrepreneurs did not believe
or trust that they (the women entrepreneurs) could meet contractual obligations and
preferred to work through the spouse. The case of Ukweli from Tanzania provides an
example.
Ukweli, engaged in food processing, reports that some of the suppliers prefer to negotiate with
her husband…. She thinks that some suppliers doubt whether she can pay for the order and
prefer to deal with her husband whom they wrongly think is the one who will pay them. This
sometimes leads to a situation where the husband makes inappropriate decisions, because he is
not involved in the day-to-day activities of the business and does not always have enough time
to consult her. (ILO, 2003b, p. 35)
4.5.4 Employing and managing others
In general the findings of previous research as reported in the WED Study
preliminary reports, show that the quality of employment in MSEs tends to be poor.
Written contracts, pensions, insurance and other important employee benefits are rarely
found in MSEs. Whilst the field research findings show that the picture is not greatly
different for the women’s enterprises in the WED Study, there was evidence of good
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