Poverty Alleviation through Elimination of Barriers in Women Owned Small Business

Abstract

This paper tries to address the problems faced by women entrepreneurs in establishing and managing their small business enterprises. Comparison is male between female and male entrepreneurs. It has tried to give some empirical evidences on the importance of small business enterprises in developing countries including Tanzania. It has further shown that female entrepreneurs are increasing in these countries. The increase in number of small business enterprises and particularly those which are owned by female entrepreneurs is partly accounted for by the structural adjustment programmes that were implemented in these countries between the second half of 1980s and the first half of 1990s that necessitated reduction in government expenditures. Consequently, there were retrenchments of government employees, cutting free public services such as medical services, education etc. Establishment and management of small business enterprises is therefore very important because it provides services that were previously being rendered by the governments in these countries. However, there are gender differentiation between small business enterprises owned by male and those which are owned by female entrepreneurs.