Assessing "What Works" for Women’s Economic Empowerment

Abstract

Leaving no woman behind in economic empowerment requires an understanding of what works for them. Using cross-sectional data from a field survey conducted between July 19th to 22nd, 2021, we document evidence for gender disparity in favour of men in entrepreneurship with women being more likely to report problems related to information sharing, negative childcare effects, and lack of family support than men. Most shocking is that women reported a higher likelihood to (dis)approve government’s support towards women economic empowerment than men. Although women reported to be four times more likely to support women-led enterprises, we find no evidence for gender support woes. Correlation analysis indicated self-help group membership and financial support outflow had a significant positive association with women economic empowerment. We further estimated an instrumental variable (IV) Probit model and employed the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) technique. Conspicuous evidence indicated that whereas financial support receipt had no significant effect on entrepreneurship, givers of such support were significantly likely to venture into entrepreneurship. The latter observation is attributed to role model views which self-motivated support providers into entrepreneurial activities. Whereas women were less likely than men to be entrepreneurs, gender had no significant effect on entrepreneurship. A problematic revelation is that Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCO) or self-help group membership and negative child care effects perception had a negative effect on entrepreneurship with the interaction of the two indicating a statistically significant negative effect. We recommend the strengthening offamily and friendship ties for such relations motivate women to help others as role models.