Ways to Remove the Gender Barrier to Entrepreneurship

Normally, being an entrepreneur has quite a lot of challenges. Entrepreneurial activity among women continues to attract attention in Nigeria and indeed Africa. However, despite obvious gains, women lag behind men in business ownership and economic independence in every continent. It is therefore important to remove the barriers stalling women entrepreneurship.

It is important to outline some of the challenges facing women who are entrepreneurs.

Family restriction:
Women are expected to spend more time with their family members, especially on the African continent. They do not encourage women to travel extensively for exploiting business opportunities. Despite this, more and more women are evolving ways to maintain a work-home balance.

Lack of Finance:
Family members do not encourage women entrepreneurs. They hesitate to invest money in the business venture initiated by women entrepreneurs. Bank and other Financial Institutions do not consider Middle-Class Women Entrepreneurs as proper applicants for setting up their projects and they are hesitant to provide financial assistance to unmarried women or girls as they are unsure as to who will repay the loan.

Lack of Education
Women are generally denied of higher education, especially in rural areas. Women are not allowed to enrich their knowledge in technical and research areas to introduce new products.

Unfavorable environment
Society is dominated by males. Many businessmen are not interested to have a business relationship with women entrepreneurs. Male generally do not encourage women entrepreneurs.

Affirmative legislative action
In this case, a law should be passed that a certain number of women should be on the board of any corporate company in the country. This will leave them with no choice than to appoint professional and entrepreneurial women to contribute to the growth of the company.