Prospects and challenges for empowering female entrepreneurs in Africa – a Nigerian case study

This study explores and investigates the prospects and challenges female entrepreneurs face in Nigeria and how they can be empowered to contribute more to economic development. The focus is to understand why many female entrepreneurs in Nigeria are primarily concentrated in the informal sector compared to their male counterparts who are dominating the formal industry and how these women can be empowered to engage more in business enterprises in the formal sector, which is believed to generate more revenue and income. Hence, women can contribute more to Nigeria's economic development. Using a qualitative methodological approach, including data was collected through semi-structured virtual interviews with twenty purposively sampled female entrepreneurs in Nigeria who have been in business for five years and above. Transcribed interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Five thematic categories that encompassed five themes emerged with sub-themes. This study found evidence to suggest that Nigerian female entrepreneurs yearn for effective human capital development, particularly in entrepreneurship education, training, networking, and mentorship, to overcome many barriers to sustaining a profitable business enterprise in the formal sector of the economy. The study found evidence that female entrepreneurs in Nigeria lack access to financial and human capital, which limits and impede them from running their businesses in the formal sector as they have mindset constraints such as risk aversion and have not been adequately equipped with entrepreneurial education, training, and soft skills such as business and leadership skills. In addition, this study found that Nigerian women have culturally imposed constraints that psychologically impede their independence, aspiration, and priorities. This study reveals that when women cross over into male-dominated sectors, they can earn more compared to the earnings they make from the traditionally female-dominated sectors. The core conclusion and implications from these limited research findings suggest that empowering female entrepreneurs to succeed in practice, particularly in the male-dominated sector, would require exposing women to human capital development, such as entrepreneurial education and training in business. This approach will promote the development of entrepreneurial skills to provide new paths and ambitions for women and the ability to negotiate their rights in socioeconomic activities. The Policymakers and the Nigerian Government can take steps towards enforcing the laws which appear to be dormant, as the policies and programs concerning women’s economic empowerment need to be properly and regularly investigated and evaluated to ascertain that their primal roles are being met. Hence, there is a need to disabuse investors' minds and spearhead them toward investing in women’s entrepreneurship. This can be done by offering more substantial tailored financial support for women entrepreneurs with growth-oriented businesses, including venture capital investment. The sampling and a single country context were significant limitations of this study. Twenty Nigerian female entrepreneurs engaged in this study. Their circumstances, barriers faced, and strategies utilized may be peculiar to specific settings and localities, mainly limited to only seven business sectors. The perceptions of these participants may not reflect or represent the views of all female entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Also, some findings may need to be replicated and transferable to other national cultures, countries, or situations, as nations and regions have different cultures, values, and beliefs, particularly about women, which may have a differential impact on entrepreneurial operations.

Citation

Nkanta, I. (2023) Prospects and challenges for empowering female entrepreneurs in Africa – a Nigerian case study. University of Wolverhampton. http://hdl.handle.net/2436/625429

Publisher

University of Wolverhampton

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/2436/625429

Type

Thesis or dissertation

Language

en

Description

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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Collections

Theses and Dissertations