Theoretical Background and Literature Review:Bangladesh still faces massive problems of poverty and unemployment. The economy, given its present production and investment structure, is unable to create formal wage employment for the labour force; particularly this is acute for women. Social mores in Bangladesh tend to grant women limited access to material resources, land, capital, and education. Lots of research indicates that male and female differ on some of the factors. As examples, females have greater difficulties in acquiring venture capital, financial resources and skills1. They also have fewer informal support systems and networks2 as well as less direct, relevant experience than men3. Other constraints faced by female entrepreneurs include being accepted as female in business, lack of a role model, lack of professional interaction, difficulties in gaining the confidence of their clients and suppliers, lack of adequate training, and lack of related experiences4. A considerable number of studies have found that conflicts between personal life and career pursuits are the most significant barrier that female entrepreneurs face5. Husbands/Spouses are generally not very much involved in their wives’ businesses, are not supportive of them and expect them to continue with their household duties despite the demands of their business6. This is not surprising for until recently females were confined to private and domestic roles. But the role of entrepreneur does not conform to the traditional roles that females are expected to play in society. These issues, and others, may result in more family conflicts for females than their husbands7.Entrepreneurship has become an important profession among the women of Bangladesh today at various levels of the society, both in the urban and the rural areas. The reason for the interest varies according to the different classes of the society8. Where women of the poorer sections of the society, 1 Aldrich, H. (1989), “Networking among Women Entrepreneurs”, in Women owned Business, G. Hagen and D.Sexton (eds), New York, Praeger, 103-132 and Hurley, A. (1991), Incorporating Feminist Theories into Sociological Theories of Entrepreneurship. Paper presented at the Annual Academy of Management Meeting, Entrepreneurship Division, Miami: Fla, August.2 Barber, J., Metcalfe, J.S. and Porteous, M. (1989), Barriers to Growth in Small Business, London, 1989.3 Stevenson, L.A. (1986), “Against All Odds:The Entrepreneurs of Women”, Journal of Small Business Management, October, 30- 44.4 Belcourt, M., Burket, R.J. and Lee-Gosselin, H. (1991), The Glass Box: Women Business Owner in Canada, Background paper published by the Canadian Advisory Council on the status of Women.5 Abir (2007), Challenges of Women Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, Yahoo! Contributor Network. Octobber. See More: http://www.associatedcontent-com/article/411265/Challenges_of_ women_entrepreneurs_in_pg10.html?cat=4.6 Goffee, R and Scase, R. (1985), Women in Charge: The Experience of Women Entrepreneurs, London: Allen & Irwin.7 World Bank, (2012), “Women Business and the Law: Removing barriers to economic inclusion”, Published online, http://wbl.worldbank.org8 Storey, D.J. (2008), Understanding the Small Enterprise, London

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especially of the rural areas, have been forced into off-house income through entrepreneurship for economic solvency; the women of the middle class families, who have always lived restricted lives, have today, ventured into entrepreneurship as a challenge and an adventure into a new world of economic activity. On the other hand, many women have taken up entrepreneurship and become businesswomen not necessarily to earn and survive and raise the living standards, but to form their careers and become professionals in order to establish their rights through the development of a sector and thereby contribute towards the progress of the society and the nation9. However, the entry of female into business is a recent development trend in the traditional socio-cultural society of Bangladesh. Though the exact statistics is difficult to get, 30 years ago, the share of business set up and operated by female members was only less than 1% which is much lower than the numbers observed in the advanced world10. The women have now become aware of the socio-economic rights and have ventured to avail the opportunities initiated for them. Rural Bangladesh is now a changed scenario for the women who have gathered courage to break barriers and enter the off-house working force as entrepreneurs and workers- a situation not accepted by the society in the recent past11.Women are as qualified as men to succeed as entrepreneurs, but they suffer two distinct disadvantages. First, there is the initial lack of confidence in their own abilities. Years of accepting a subordinate status and strict role segregation have left women lacking in confidence to venture into new initiatives. Second, there is society’s lack of confidence in women’s ability. This is manifested in the family’s reluctance to finance a women's venture, in a banker’s reluctance to take risk on projects set up by women, and in a general unwillingness to accept women as decision-makers or to stand as guarantors for loans to them. It is clear that special efforts are needed to promote and support women’s entrepreneurship. Following on from a regional project to promote entrepreneurship among women in small and cottage industries in India, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, the ILO has accumulated considerable information on the status of women entrepreneurs in each of these countries. The most common reason for starting a business in Bangladesh is the market demand, 16% of the respondents of a Nordic survey entered Bangladesh for cost efficient production and 12% of the respondents for efficient sourcing, according to the survey. About 56% survey participants consider the business climate in Bangladesh as favorable. Some 53% of the participants believe that the power supply situation has improved significantly over the last 2 years, a rise of almost 19% from the last survey in 2013. The scenario,

9 http://www.associatedcontent-com/article/411265/Challenges_of_ women_entrepreneurs_in_pg10 . 10 Baumol, W.J. (1993), Entrepreneurship, Management and the Structure of Payoffs, MIT.11 Stanworth, J. and Curran, J. (1989), ‘Who Becomes an Entrepreneurs’, International Small Business Journal, October, Vol. 8, No.1, pp. 11-23.

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however, is not a 100% optimistic as many companies have identified scope of improvements in certain areas which the national decision makers should look into in order for Bangladesh to remain an attractive business and investment destination12. Further, the survey suggests that Telecom and IT/ITES is the biggest sector in Bangladesh (32% of respondents) while RMG/Textiles account for 25%. Of course in terms of volume/turnover, RMG is most likely the biggest sector.Since the 1980s, microfinance institutions in Bangladesh, such as the Grameen Bank, have touted the success of women micro entrepreneurs in starting and operating thousands of microenterprises throughout the country. While this is certainly an achievement, Bangladeshi women have not achieved the same level of success in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector.In Bangladesh, male small business owners far outnumber female business owners, despite some recent progress. The importance of SMEs to overall growth in an economy is well-known. Although the exact definition of SMEs varies from country-to-country, they are generally much larger – in terms of

A business owner at “Joyeeta”. Photo by Nizam Al-Hussainy12 http://nccib.com/nordic-business-confidence-survey-2015

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both assets and number of employees – than microenterprises. SMEs are often lifelines for larger firms – including foreign-owned firms – supplying them with raw materials, parts, and services. They are also more productive than microenterprises, driving employment and competition.

On an individual level, starting and operating an SME requires not only entrepreneurial spirit and start-up capital (which many micro entrepreneurs have), but also managerial and logistical expertise. In addition, in cumbersome business environments like Bangladesh, starting and operating an SME often requires a business person to be well connected to bureaucrats or at least to networks who can access them. Women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh frequently lack access to such expertise and networks, limiting their ability to become SME entrepreneurs.

Moreover, expectations of women’s role in the family as wives, mothers, and homemakers may limit their ability to pursue economic opportunities outside of the home.

Less than 1% of firm owners in the country are women13. According to DCCI experts, most SMEs in the country are sole proprietorships or partnerships formed around family businesses. Tradition dictates that the male head of the household owns most of the family assets, including family businesses.

Similarly, female SME ownership across districts is very uneven, with smaller districts like Barisal and Jessore having a higher proportion of female owner than large cities such as Dhaka, Chittagong, and Khulna. One hypothesis is that women face additional barriers to entrepreneurship in Bangladesh’s mega cities – such as the high price of land, weak urban governance, and limited access to effective networks.14

Bangladesh Women entrepreneurs are energetic, willing to learn, innovative, hard working, and are willing to take risks. Small amount of assistance is extremely effective for them to graduate from micro to more sustainable small and medium sized entrepreneurs. Recognizing this potential of women entrepreneurs to play a more effective role in private sector development in the country, BWCCI was formed to act as a nucleus to assist, activate, inform, organize, and assimilate Bangladesh’s women entrepreneurs.

BWCCI is committed to being a leader of broad based economic development in Bangladesh for business women & industrialists. They support the women business community by providing training, management & financial

13 DCCI present President in an interview with APEX consultants on 27/11/1614 Farhana Zaman, Department of Sociology, Jagannath University. Email:fzaman_soc@yahoo.com, 2014

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resource, expertise & support networks that enable small businesses to succeed & prosper. They also serve all businesses with a special focus on small, micro rural women entrepreneurs. The members of BWCCI are individual entrepreneurs of micro, small and medium enterprises and also NGOs that are engaged in promotion of women in business and economic sectors. The members of BWCCI are from the entire range of socio-economic spectrum. Although the members are predominantly engaged in various traditionally women dominated sectors, such as food, beauty, fashion, health products, handicrafts etc., its membership is also increasing among the emerging group of women entrepreneurs in various non-traditional businesses such as IT, media, publication and other services.15

The increase in male internal and external migration, their shifting to non-agricultural activities, and higher crop intensity has resulted in increased women’s participation in the agriculture sector. Women are more concentrated in crop production and post harvest activities rather than in agribusiness and at higher levels of the value chain16.

Men dominate all types of industry except in private households where 81% are women17. Gender differences in the status of employment prevails, which was found in a survey conducted by planning commission, which showed that 56.3% women were unpaid family workers compared to 7.1% for men. About 15.7% women were self-employed in agriculture, 8.9% in regular paid employment and 9.4% as self employed in non-agriculture. A good number of women are now engaged in the ICT outsourcing market, in armed forces and in law enforcing agencies. Though women’s participation in the public service is increasing, however less than one fourth of the senior officials and managers are women.18

The Government supports entrepreneurial capacity development and access to finance such as quota provisions for women in allotment of plots in BSCIC industrial estates, bank finance and business development services. Bangladesh Bank (BB) established refinancing schemes and has encouraged all banks and financial institutions to provide loans to women entrepreneurs at 10 percent interest rate and to give collateral free loans upto Tk. 25 lakhs. Banks have been instructed to reserve 15 percent of total SME funds exclusively for women entrepreneurs. About40 Banks and non-banks Financial Institutions have availed these refinance facilities. A dedicated 15 www. bwcci -bd.org/ 16 General Economics Division, Planning Commission, Government of Bangladesh, Prepared by,Ferdousi Sultana Begum, December 201417 ADB and ILO 201118 General Economics Division, Planning Commission, Government of Bangladesh, Prepared by,Ferdousi Sultana Begum, December 2014

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Women Entrepreneurs Desk has been established in BB and all the banks and financial institutions have been directed to establish Women’s Desk at head office and at branch levels.

Improving the investment climate:19

Over the past decade Bangladesh performed well on many macroeconomic indicators, became more integrated with the world economy, and achieved impressive social gains. This progress in the 1990s is heartening. But the performance of other low-income countries suggests that Bangladesh has fallen short of its growth potential. While Bangladesh has maintained fairly high per capita growth for the past decade, its growth has nonetheless lagged far behind that in some countries. Bangladesh’s investment climate poses particular obstacles to economic growth and development.

Some of them are as follows:• Infrastructure

• Electricity • Corruption

• Regulation as a serious problem.Starting a firm in Bangladesh is fairly difficult. And once firms are running, they receive frequent visits from government agencies—about 17 a year on average.• Finance

• Small- and medium-size firms are disproportionately affected by all these problems.

Carrying out the needed reforms may be difficult, but the costs of avoiding and delaying them are high.20

Areas needing attention: Women’s participation is concentrated in the agriculture sector in rural areas and their participation in non-farm employment has not increased as per SFYP targets. Women’s limited access to information, time burden, low access to technology, traditional gender

19 An Investment Climate Assessment Based on an Enterprise Survey Carried Out by the Bangladesh EnterpriseInstitute and the World Bank, 2013, 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433, USA20 An Investment Climate Assessment Based on an Enterprise Survey Carried Out by the Bangladesh EnterpriseInstitute and the World Bank, 2013, 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433, USA

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roles etc. have constrained them from shifting towards non-farm activities. Wage gap between women and men still remains and women receive almost two thirds of men’s wages. Minimum wages have not been set for all sectors. Women’s skills and education level are not suitable to respond to the need of business & employment market. Traditional segregation of work also discourages women from entering in some job areas. Lack of gender responsive working environment including inadequate facilities of child care, transport, accommodation, occupational health and safety are some of the reasons that discourage women from accessing the business and job market. Women entrepreneurs have not yet been able to access institutional financing at a desired level, due to their own lack of capacity to fulfill the requirements and the banks’ lack of confidence in women. Provision for health, life and disability insurance for workers, especially in informal sector is missing. Regulatory and incentive based measured are needed to ensure that private sector, chambers of commerce, employers associations and trade unions, play a positive role in ensuring these.A major constraint was that specific targets were not set in these areas and that women’s contribution for economic growth was not adequately considered. Planned measures to harness women’s potentials were not put in place. The participation of women in readymade garments and other industries was not by design for their empowerment but as cheap labourer, which is evident from the struggle for pay and bonus every year.

Transport and other infrastructure facilities for women are very limited compared to the needs. The government of Bangladesh did not have planned initiative, targets and coordination with private sector for ensuring safe workplace and transportation for women. Girls are still discouraged to continue higher education due to insecurity and other reasons. Incidences of gender-based violence in educational institutions, at workplace, and during travel have been reported and need addressing.

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Interviewing female entrepreneurs:

A gender related questionnaire (see the annexure A) was formulated and 9 informant’s interviews were conducted. The aim of each of these research tools was to collect information from women on gender roles and relations along the business inputs value chain. Specifically, the tools assessed the following:

Women’s and men’s roles in various stages of business/ production and use of inputs;

Who has the access to and control over resources; Who own the resources and who has access to resources Who decides over use of resources Who does what in business owned by female entrepreneurs What are the constraints facing female entrepreneurs in running a

business and how to overcome them?

During our interview we found women entrepreneurs belong to various women welfare associations registered under Department of Women Affairs. According to them their involvement with these associations encouraged them to be entrepreneur and provided a base of producer group to start their own business especially boutique houses.

Very few women possess land resources legalized in their names but all of the respondents own machineries (mostly sewing) for business purpose. They came to these business by own decision and in many cases their family supported them. (see the below charts).

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Machinery

Credit

Savings

Knowledge / tra

ining

Networks

/ groups

Expansio

n

Transporta

tion

Value adding / proce

ssing

0.0020.0040.0060.0080.00

100.00120.00

Who own the resources

Family% Entrepreneur herself/Business Entity%Women association% Lack of Access to resources%

There are no special privilege for them of being registered under RJSC so they haven’t registered their business still 7 out of 9 respondents have Trade license for running their business. They run their business as sole trader and employed few people in the role of manger/accountant and sales person. All of 9 respondents led women welfare association which works as the group of producer (women). The producer group members work for the entrepreneurs in product base wage system like get paid for doing embroidery in each dress. Entrepreneur herself or salaried employee looks after the raw material procurement, quality control and transportation issues.

All respondents are member of JOYEETA- a network or foundation supported by Ministry of Women and Children Affairs. Furthermore, majority of them are member of Bangladesh women Chamber of Commerce.

Another constraint is that they have lack of access to markets and these women entrepreneurs mostly work as producer groups. Majority of interviewed women entrepreneurs have TIN and submit tax returns annually.

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Land

Machinery

Credit

Savings

Knowledge / tra

ining

Networks

/ groups

Expansio

n

Transporta

tion

Value adding / proce

ssing

0.0020.0040.0060.0080.00

100.00120.00

Who own the resources

Family% Entrepreneur herself/Business Entity%Women association% Lack of Access to resources%

Land

Credit

Knowledge / training

Expansion

Value adding / processing

0.00 50.00 100.00 150.00 200.00 250.00

Who has access to the resources

Entrepreneur herself% Employees/business entity%Producer group members%

Some respondents expressed their experience of discrimination while applying for trade license as the authority asked for the product sample to prove their business. In most cases male members of the family helped the women entrepreneurs in getting trade license or electricity connection issues.

For startup entrepreneurs managed fund by their own sources. One of their major problems is lack of access to credit from bank or other financial institutions. All interviewed women SME entrepreneurs' demand for finance remains unmet as banks and non-bank financial institutions do not want to lend to women, the survey found.

(“The unmet demand for financing was estimated at Tk 6,007 crore for FY 2014-15, according to the report of the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank Group”.21, The survey was conducted among 500 women SME entrepreneurs in 12 districts, including seven divisional headquarters.)

Though women-owned businesses are viewed as the new economic agents of change in Bangladesh, limited access to finance coupled with socio-cultural barriers restricts their participation in economic activities. Even different initiatives taken by the government and the Bangladesh Bank have failed to inspire lenders to extend loans to women entrepreneurs. Many women entrepreneurs want to expand their business, but banks do not lend them to support their growth.

In most cases banks ask for husband/father as guarantor or collateral and women entrepreneur get little help in this regard. But it is easy to access loan for women entrepreneurs who has strong social position and good

21 Source: The daily star of Nov 24, 2016, The report titled “Mapping the market potential and accelerating finance for women SME entrepreneurs in Bangladesh”

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liaison with high officials or influential people like political leaders.

Selection of business

Day to day marketing, selling and looking after business by

Looking after tax, VAT related issues

Marketing / selling expansion

Control sales proceeds

Others (please specify), if any

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Who does what in business

Men% women% Mixed HH%Women association% No action%

Additionally, from the above analysis it was revealed that in businesses run by women, male partners of the family rarely helps female partners. I was also found in most cases women entrepreneurs can manage technical knowledge acquired by them through various training events offered by Dept. of Women Affairs, NGOs and other organizations but they mostly lack knowledge about business related issues.

Challenges women entrepreneurs face:

1. Their demand for credit/loan are unmet2. They are not happy about the credit/loan giving application

process/system3. All interviewed women faced challenges meeting collateral requirements

for bank loans and there exist gender discriminations in banking system

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The end

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Annexure A

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS: Gender issues related

Who does what in business? Quick Gender analysis

Activities Men

women

Mixed HH

comment

Selection of businessBuy materials for businessDay to day marketing, selling and looking after business byDecides about other matters of businessLooking after tax, VAT related issuesOther value addition for marketingMarketing / selling expansionPrice negotiation or bargaining Control sales proceeds

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Decision over income for spendingOthers (please specify), if any

Access to and control over resources

Resources Who own the resource

Who has access

How is it used? Do you use it only for business purposes?

Who decides over its use

comments

LandMachineryCreditSavingsKnowledge / trainingNetworks /

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Resources Who own the resource

Who has access

How is it used? Do you use it only for business purposes?

Who decides over its use

comments

groupsExpansionTransportationMarketingValue adding / processingSale proceeds / income

Issues to cover

Issues to cover

Question Answer/Comments

Business Entry and Growth

To start a business what are the steps you have gone through?Do you think you faced discrimination from the authority to get permission/ different clearance

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Issues to cover

Question Answer/Comments

certificates as you are a man/woman? (From the gender/sex point of view?) During Pre registration phase During Registration phasePost registration phase TIN/VAT/trade license To get Approvals and permissions forelectricity, water, sewerage and gas connections etc.?Who is looking after your business finance, profit ?Who control your money to be spend ?Who control money for profit utilization/business growth? Do you submit tax and VATreturns?What problem you Face while submitting tax and VATreturns? How to make it easy for you as man/woman?What are the problems you faced to open a bank account?

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Issues to cover

Question Answer/Comments

Are you a Member of a trade society? Do you think that you as a woman faced lot of problems to be a member of such society?What constraints/problems/challenges you faced as woman to SME business development?

Environmental Protection

Did you need environmental clearance certificate for your business?If so how many days you spent for that?Did you face any problem to procure it?Did you face any problem as you are man/woman to submit supporting documents / Submit application environment clearance certificate?

Establishment of a one stop shop

Do you know what ‘one stop shop’ is?What facilities you expect from such step?Do you think that this will be a gender neutral?

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Issues to cover

Question Answer/Comments

Do you think that this will be a economy your resource/time/harassment for business start up?

Table: 1Access to and control over resources

Resources Family%Entrepreneur herself/Business Entity%

Women association%

Lack of Access to resources%

Entrepreneur herself%

Employees/business entity%

Land 11.11 11.11 11.11 66.67 11.11 22.22

Machinery   88.89 11.11     88.89

Credit   33.33     33.33  

Savings            

Knowledge / training         100 22.22

Networks / groups         100  

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Expansion   11.11   88.89   11.11

Transportation       100    

Value adding / processing           88.89

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Land

Credit

Knowledge / training

Expansion

Value adding / processing

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Who decides over the use of resources

Women association% Mixed HH%women% Men%

Land

Credit

Knowledge / training

Expansion

Value adding / processing

0.00 50.00 100.00 150.00 200.00 250.00

Who has access to the resources

Entrepreneur herself% Employees/business entity%Producer group members%

Land

Machinery

Credit

Savings

Knowledge / tra

ining

Networks

/ groups

Expansio

n

Transporta

tion

Value adding / proce

ssing

0.0020.0040.0060.0080.00

100.00120.00

Who own the resources

Family% Entrepreneur herself/Business Entity%Women association% Lack of Access to resources%

Table 2

Activities Men%

women%

Mixed HH%

Women association%

No action%

Selection of business   44.44 55.56    Buy materials for business   88.89 11.11    Day to day marketing, selling and looking after business by  

100.00      

Decides about other matters of business   77.78 11.11 11.11  Looking after tax, VAT related issues   88.89     11.11Other value addition for marketing   77.78     22.22Marketing / selling expansion   88.89     11.11Price negotiation or bargaining  

100.00      

Control sales proceeds  100.00      

Decision over income for spending   33.33 66.67    Others (please specify), if any          

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Selection of business

Day to day marketing, selling and looking after business by

Looking after tax, VAT related issues

Marketing / selling expansion

Control sales proceeds

Others (please specify), if any

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Who does what in business

Men% women% Mixed HH%Women association% No action%

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