Women Engagement in Business: Evidence from Community Based Cross-Sectional Study in North Gondar Zone, Northwest Ethiopia

Hagos, T. et al. (2017) ‘Women Engagement in Business: Evidence from Community Based Cross-Sectional Study in North Gondar Zone, Northwest Ethiopia’, Journal of Culture, Society and Development, 36. 

The author started with the global data that indicates 70% of the global poor are women. As a means to end extreme poverty in the world, investing in women empowerment is one of the mechanisms. Women empowerment contributes both for personal improvement and the women’s life and their family/community. In sub saharan African also women are living in absolute poverty when compared with their male counterparts. In Ethiopia though the government has signed many international human rights instruments and taken various actions that aim at promotion of women’s rights, there is still a significant gender gap in which women are economically, socially, culturally and politically disadvantaged. Moreover, femininity remains an indicator of major disadvantage whereby the country ranked 127th out of 142 countries indicating large gender disparities. The study has explained the importance of women empowerment as it has enabled women to become more assertive and confident in their engagements in negotiation, communication and decision making powers. The study has also shown the limited access of women for economic gains namely finance, property and credit.

The article has used a cross-sectional study. As the study was conducted in Amhara Region, three districts (wereda) and one town were selected using multistage sampling as a study area. The participants in the study were all married women. The sample size was determined to be 500 respondents. As a result, the respondents were selected using systematic random sampling. Regarding data analysis, the article stated the data first entered into Epi-Info 3.5.1 and transferred to SPSS version 20 for analysis. 

The finding has revealed that a third of respondents have no independent accumulated money while nearly over a fifth of respondents happen to have their own adequate savings. In relation to access to a bank, 70% of the respondents have not had any bank account while only 7.4% have their own bank account which implies that there is low economic empowerment for women. The remaining percent referees for bank accounts opened with their husbands. Concerning women’s participation in businesses, the study has revealed only a little above a quarter of respondents have owned their own informal business. The main factors for not engaging in business, the study has indicated lack of money 64.2%, and lack of knowledge 14.2% as pressing challenges. The study has also found out that the majority (95.7%)  showed interest in starting a business in areas that include selling animal and animal products, beverages, selling agricultural products and others. The finding has also revealed only 36% of respondents have a savings account, even though there is access to savings institutions close to their homes. 

Therefore, to address all the aforementioned challenges, the authors have recommended that there is a need to pay attention to the plight of women’s engagement in business activities, saving practices, creating enabling environments, capacity building training and access to start up are recommended for intervention.