Participation Of Women In Economic Activities Research Articles

Women MSME’s and Proverty

Women participation in economic activities is often limited by social norms, especially in Indonesians majority societies. Nevertheless, the burden of poverty is forced many women to work in several jobs. This paper aims to investigate and discuss discuss female entrepreneur challenge in poverty reduction This research is using qualitative method to collect and analyze the data through interview, FGD, and direct observation. Respondents were chosen by purposive sampling, while key informants were chosen by snowball technique. The results show that the main challaneg of Mataram’s women to reduce their poverty are not gender but mostly lack of financial control and access funding, lack of market information and a scarcity of talented employees. Furthermore, Women participation in poverty reduction program is considered to be the key of success in many poverty alleviation, one of them is being female entrepreneur or managing MSMEs

Regulatory enforcement, gender quotas, and women on board: evolution and firm performance

One of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations in 2015 is goal 5 (SDG 5 or global goal 5) concerns gender equality. Target 5.5 (Ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life) is seen as an important cornerstone of gender equality. Furthermore, indicator 5.5.2 considers the proportion of women in managerial positions as a mean towards achieving the global goal 5. So, there are several questions that deserve answers: Does gender diversity matter? And what are its implications on regulatory environment, and its effects on firm performance? The easiest to answer of these three questions is probably the first, since there is bulk of theoretical arguments and several empirical findings show that companies that enjoy an acceptable level of board diversity, in terms of women participations on boards, tend to be more efficient and more profitable than those with less diversity. The second question is perhaps the most interesting because it has, recently, spawned rich actions taken by different policymakers and regulators to impose women quotas on boards, mainly for publicly traded companies. The upshot of these actions is to empower women economically, on the ground that women participation in economic activities and decision-making will have a positive impact on the economy at large. What makes this finding interesting is its implications for the third question, since there is no consensus in the literature and empirical evidence on the impact of women on boards on firm performance. As a result, one could conclude that gender diversity, in terms of women participation on boards, or the lack of it is immaterial to firm performance.

Financial Inclusion and Labour Market Participation of Women in Selected Countries in Africa

Abstract Research purpose: This study investigates the impact of financial inclusion on female labour force participation in Africa. It also complements the existing studies by evaluating how advancement in information and communication technology (ICT) and Trade openness (TO) modulate the relationship between financial inclusion and female economic participation in selected African countries. Design/methodology/approach: The study focuses on twelve African countries while the empirical evidence is based on Fixed Effects, Random Effects and Generalised Least Square estimators (GLS). Data over the period of 2005-2016 are sourced from the World Bank Development database and IMF international Financial Statistics. Findings: The results show that financial inclusion has a non-monotonic relationship with female labour force participation. The study establishes that if the level of financial inclusion can be increased to the range of 33-57 per cent, it would improve the level of women participation in economic activities. The results further show that ICT moderates the nexus between financial inclusion and female economic participation at a threshold level of 38.17 per cent. These findings persist when the TO is used as the moderating factor at a threshold value of 80.90 per cent. The results are robust enough to suggest an alternative proxy for female labour force participation and alternative estimation techniques. Originality/value/practical implications: Ending gender inequality has become one of the priorities in the global development policies in which most African nations domesticate the same for their national planning. There are voices at every corner in Africa demanding the possibility of achieving gender equality in employment, among others. This article is one of the few articles that evaluate whether financial inclusion can be used to accelerate female economic participation in Africa.

Do Self-Help Groups Empower Women? Evidences from Nuh District of Haryana

Men and women complement each other in many aspects of life. Nevertheless, when we talk about empowerment, there is big diversity. There are often pressures and opposition from within the family due to societal stereotypes that force women to take care of the house as her key responsibility. Unequal or unfair treatments marginalized the women and hindered their participation in socio-economic growth of the country. However, the findings of the studies showed that women participation in economic activities produced large gains in economic welfare. This study was an attempt to contribute in the debate about how the self-help groups were helpful to empower the women; as women empowerment overcame the gender disparity (the gap between men and women) and increased the participation of women in economic as politic activities of the country. For this purpose, the primary data was collected from the Nuh district of Haryana, considered the most backward district of India. This study showed that self-help group intervention had a positive role in empowering women.

The role and determinants of women labor force participation for household poverty reduction in Debre Birhan town, North Shewa zone, Ethiopia

Women participation in economic activities plays a critical role in driving economic development throughout the world. This study aims to analyze the role and determinants of women’s labor force participation for reducing household poverty in the case of Debre Birhan town. To carry out this, the study used a cross-sectional study design. The data was collected by distributing questionnaires to a total of 291 sample households using multi-stage sampling technique. Logistic regression model was employed to analyze the determinants of women labor force participation by the collected data. The binary logit regression result identified that training, exposed to mass media and access to credit and education status of woman were found to be positive and significantly related to the probability of being participate. Moreover, Logistic regression model was employed in order to analyze the effect of woman labor force participation to household poverty reduction, with the probability of a household being poor as a dependent variable and a set of demographic and socioeconomic variables as the explanatory parameters. Based on this, out of the 291 surveyed household heads, 183(62.89%) of them were found poor. The result of this study confirms that women’s participation reduces the household poverty. Therefore, this study recommends that household uses family planning, promotes woman to attend higher education, exposed to mass media, creating public or private daycare centers for child and access to credit for woman. At this juncture both the households and the government should have the joint effort and responsibility to find possible panaceas.

English

This article assesses the link between the four pillars of gender equality and extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Accordingly, the objective of the paper is to empirically examine whether the four pillars of gender equality, namely women’s health, women education, political participation of women and economic participation facilitate extreme poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. Data were collected from the World Bank development indicators and World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Index for 25 sub-Saharan African countries whose data appear on both indexes for three years into the SDGs era. Th e paper applied a quantitative approach with secondary data on poverty gap index drawn from the World Economic Forum Poverty Gap Index for sub-Saharan Africa. Data for twenty-fi ve sub-Saharan African countries were analysed using the fi xed-eff ect panel data regression approach using the Hauseman model selection test. Findings from the analysis indicate that, ceteris paribus, an increase in the threegender equity variables namely economic participation of women, education of women and political participation and leadership of women in sub-Saharan Africa has a signifi cant potential to reduce extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa within the sample of study. Since the fi ndings of this study have shown that extreme poverty can be reduced through increased women participation in economic activity, education and leadership, the SDG of poverty alleviation can be improved in sub-Saharan Africa through better government provision of economic, educational and leadership opportunities for women such as providing women with free-interest small business start-up funds, free education for women and supporting women to ascend and survive in political and leadership positions in sub-Saharan Africa through a balanced quota for female leadership positions. Given that the women’s health variable did not prove to be signifi cant on extreme poverty, further research is recommended to separate the health variable into rural health and urban health variables in order to examine the possibility that either of the health clusters might contribute signifi cantly to reducing extreme poverty. Th is paper contributes to existing literature by providing an empirical evidence to show that gender equality in sub-Saharan Africa is a viable policy strategy for achieving the SDGs 2030 Agenda of extreme poverty eradication in sub-Saharan Africa; the paper also provides empirical model for future study.

Financial inclusion and women participation in gainful employment: an empirical analysis of Nigeria

The paper examines the effect of financial inclusion on women participation in gainful employment in Nigeria for the period 1980 – 2018, employing the ARDL method. Both in the short run, and long-run the results obtained indicated a positive relationship between financial inclusion and women participation in gainful employment. Thus, the paper recommends that the government should ensure that the barriers to financial inclusion is reduced or removed. This will increase women participation in economic activities, since measures regarding financial inclusion is adjudged as convenient, safety and prompt. Measures that will enhance private deposit and expansion of more commercials banks branch in rural areas to enhance women’s access to financial services which discourage the use of informal financial services should be encouraged.

Roles of age and gender in the attainment of sustainable governance in Africa

The study set out to investigate how gender and age influence democratic governance in selected Sub-Saharan African countries. How well age and gender influence democratic governance in Africa has remained grossly understudied in extant literature of public sector and welfare economics. Based on panel data and illustrations from seven Sub-Sahara nations (Cameroun, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania), this paper discussed the need for full participation of women in democratic governance in Africa. The findings advocated that gender and age have significant effects on democratic governance in Africa. While there is the need for more qualitative research on gender and age indicators for good governance on more countries in Africa, this paper suggested that African governments must continuously introduce gender-friendly policies that will enhance women participation in economic activities for a more equitable and egalitarian society that has eluded us years gone.Keywords: Democratic Governance, Age, Gender, Panel Estimation, Sub-Saharan Africa

Women empowerment and participation in economic activities: Indispensable tools for self-reliance and development of Nigerian society

The objective of the study was to examine women empowerment and participation in economic activities as tools for self-reliance and development of the Nigerian society. Research questions and hypothesis were used to guide the study. Structured questionnaire was used as the major instrument for data collection. Copies of questionnaires were administered to 402 women randomly selected from 6 out of the 21 local government Areas of Anambra State. 351 copies of questionnaire recovered were analyzed using mean to answer the research questions and t-test statistic to draw inferences about the hypothesis. The results showed that: farming, trading, craft, food processing, hair dressing, poultry and the likes were the major economic activities performed by women in Anambra state. Personal savings, family assistance, philanthropist’s assistance, loans and credits, cooperative society assistance, group contributions, were the sources of fund available to the women for their economic activities. Education and health promotion, food supply and distribution, were some of the services rendered by the women that bring about societal development. Inability of government to provide support, corruption on the part of implementers, family burden, cultural restrictions, husband influence, illiteracy were the obstacles women encounter in carrying out their economic activities. Provision of sustainable land tenure system, provision of soft loans and credits, training programmes, funding, establishment of cooperative societies, were some of the strategies proffered to enhance women participation in economic activities. Key words: Women empowerment, economic activities, self-reliance, societal development