Women Entrepreneurs in MSEs in Indonesia: Their Motivations and Main Constraints

Abstract

This paper is based on a research aiming to examine the development of women entrepreneurs in Indonesia by exploring their main personal motivations or initial reasons to do own businesses and identifying their main constraints in running businesses. The research was based on a desk study, secondary data analysis, and a small field survey of 108 women owning micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in the Great Jakarta area. Findings from the survey show that many of them run their own businesses as a means to survive, and limited access to finance is the most serious constraint faced by the respondents, caused by their lack of valuable assets as collateral. The paper concludes that the growth of number of women-led businesses, especially MSEs, in Indonesia should not be regarded only as the rise of entrepreneurship among women in the country. Unemployment or poverty may have also played a role in pushing many women to conduct own small businesses.