Women Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh

01. Introductory
1.1 Abstract:
Womens economic empowerment is an inevitable part of development discourse. Excluding women from the mainstream development program, institutionalization of a sustainable development process is just unthinkable. Keep the issues in mind, the Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, since its inception in 2001, has been working for women entrepreneurship development across the country. As part of its unbroken visions towards a gender friendly environment, especially enlightened in private sector, BWCCI has been implementing a project named Promoting Women Entrepreneurship through Advocacy in cooperation with the Center for International Private Enterprise. The main goal of the project is to facilitate increased participation in the economy by women entrepreneurs. Having proper information is always a power. Lack of this power has made women entrepreneurs unable to claim their rights in a justified and structured way. Realizing this existing reality, BWCCI has conducted this study. Keeping all these issues in consideration, the main thematic issues covered by this study are socio-demographic profile of women entrepreneurs, types of women-owned enterprises, regulatory procedures including tax, VAT, company registration, training and capacity buildings and human resources. The study also focused womens access to finance, business management, product and design development, marketing and the issues related to business promotion. Keywords: Entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurship, socio-demographic profile of women entrepreneurs, types of women-owned enterprises, training and capacity buildings and human resources.

1.2 Introduction:
Existing sex ratio in demographic structure of Bangladesh indicates that women comprise almost 50% of the total population. Due to this demographic structure, the issue of the participation of women in the mainstream economy is imperative. Without a meaningful and active participation of women, half of the total population, in regular economic activities, a dynamic and sustainable economy is impossible. Considering the issue, a special emphasis has been given by the Government, donor agencies, NGOs, business community and all other relevant stakeholders through different interventions to ensure increased womens participation in formal economic sector, especially in business and industry. The major initiatives undertaken by the Government so far included establishment of a separate ministry on womens affairs, formulation of the National Policy for Advancement of Women 2008. The Bangladesh Government has also formed a National Women SME Forum under the SME Foundation of the Ministry of Industry to promote womens participation in formal economic sectors. The industrial and SME policies 2005 of Bangladesh Government have

emphasized women entrepreneurship development, particularly in SME sector. A recent survey conducted by the PPRC, an independent research organization in to improve the legislative environment in which women entrepreneurs operates in Bangladesh, nationally and locally. In order to achieve project goal and objectives, a series of activities were undertaken including three tier advocacy group formation, advocacy meetings, policy dialogues, seminars, roundtable meetings, memo development, issue briefs development and policy recommendation. It is inspiring to mention here that new womens entrepreneurs class is increasingly emerging each year taking on the challenge to work in a male-dominated, competitive and complex economic and business environment.

1.3 Research Objective:

The overall objective of the study is to have an overview of the existing situation of women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh in line with their problems and prospects. Considering the overall objective, the study selected the following focal issues as thematic areas of this research initiative: Socio-demographic profile of women entrepreneurs Profile and types of women-owned enterprises Regulatory procedures including tax, VAT and company registration Training and capacity buildings, human resources Access to finance including the implementation status of the Bangladesh Bank circular Business management including business planning, accounting and bookkeeping, etc Product and design development, marketing and business promotion Social perspective of women entrepreneurs Conditions and position of women entrepreneurs in family life including their economic contribution to the family Overall perception about business environment. Considering the objectives of the study, geographical areas, time, types of respondents, major thematic areas under the study, both qualitative and quantitative research methods and procedures were applied to explore pertinent information for this study.

1.4 Data Collection Sources and Methods

Considering the nature of variables and types of respondents, both qualitative and quantitative procedures of data collection were applied. Main four data collection methods used in this study is as follows: Semi-structured questionnaire survey: This method was applied to collect data from women entrepreneurs.

Literature Review:
Primarily project documents such as project proposal, quarterly progress reports, result framework and other available documents were used in order to explore pertinent variables for the study.

1.5 Overall Challenges and Limitation of the study

All possible cautions were maintained during the planning of study, selection of methods and techniques, data processing and analysis. In spite of this, the study is not free from limitations. Some limitations related to the study could be cited here as follows: Considering the volume of the study, the timeline was limited, particularly for questionnaire survey. Therefore, it was a great challenge us to reach all respondents within the timeframe. To get response from women entrepreneurs for all questions was really a great challenges as women entrepreneurs were found to be very busy. As a result, some important information was missed. Existing Infrastructure of communication is not so good in the study areas. So it was hard to reach some areas. Some qualitative findings were related to the perception of respondents. These findings may not be representative to predict the overall situation of women entrepreneurs.

02. Theoretical Aspects

2.1 Who is an Entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur is a person who innovates, organizes & takes the risk of running an enterprise. He arranges everything required to get upon enterprise that is funds, land, labor, material & machinery. In other words, an entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and is accountable for the inherent risks and the outcome of a product. The entrepreneur leads the firm or organization and also demonstrates leadership qualities by selecting managerial staff. A person who takes the risks necessary to organize and manage a business and receives the financial profits and nonmonetary rewards -Skinner S J & Ivancevich J M A person, who organizes, operates and assumes the risk for business venture. -American Heritage Dictionary In fine we can say that, an entrepreneur as the individual who bears the risk of operating a business in the face of uncertainty about future conditions and who is rewarded accordingly by his profit or losses.

2.2 Concept of Women Entrepreneur

Women entrepreneurs are the women or a group of women who initiate, organize and operate a business enterprise. Technically, a "women entrepreneur" is any women who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. However, quite often the term "women-owned business" is used relative to government contracting. In this instance, the entrepreneur (a woman) owns (more than 50%), controls and runs the enterprise. A women entrepreneur can be defined as a conf ident, innovative and creative women capable of achieving self economic independence individually or in collaboration, generates employment opportunities for others through initiating, establishing and running the enterprise by keeping pace with her personal, family and social life. -Kamal Singh Women who innovate, imitate or adopt a business activity are called women entrepreneurs. -Schumpeterian

In fine we can say, an enterprise owned and controlled by a women having a minimum financial interest of 51 per cent of the capital and giving at least 51 percent of the employment generated in the enterprise to women is called women entrepreneurship.

2.3 The Emerging Women Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh

In recent years, the developing countries of the world including Bangladesh have been focusing attention on the most disadvantaged group in the society - the women. Realization has gradually dawned on all concerned that a society cannot afford to waste half of its human resources by discrimination on grounds of sex. This increasing awareness on the part of the government has led to the adoption of national policies to facilitate a development process involving women in all spheres particularly in economic activities focusing especially on entrepreneurship development. The overwhelming majority of women in Bangladesh are not only poor, but also caught between two vastly different worlds --- the world determined by culture and tradition that confines their activities inside family homesteads, where they are regarded more as a commodity necessary only for bearing and rearing children and the world shaped by increasing landlessness and poverty that focus them outside into various economic activities for survival. Thus the female members, constituting half the country's population, are lagging far behind their male counterparts in all spheres of life. In Bangladesh, though the majority of the working women still have not been able to impose a controlling authority in mainstream production, there has arisen a new class - the women entrepreneurs, who have accepted the challenges of life and have emerged as leaders in the socio-economic development - earning for themselves and for their families or contributing towards the socio-political upliftment of the women. Not only have their greater participation in remunerative work improved their living conditions and provided bargaining positions in the households and wider community, but they are also creating opportunities for the general womenfolk leading to their economic progress and paving the way for a dignified survival through sustainable development. Women have now become aware of their 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 past. The urban areas have greater opportunities for business development but the areas where women lack assistance is in the access to credit, provision of skill training, and market facilities.

2.4 Reason of Becoming Woman Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship today has become an important profession among the women of Bangladesh 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 society. Where women of the poorer sections of the society, especially of the rural areas, due to poverty, 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 this profession 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 nation.

2.5 Functions of Women Entrepreneurs

A Women Entrepreneur performs all the functions involved in establishing an enterprise. These include idea generation and screening, determination of objectives, project preparation, product analysis, determination of forms of business organization, completion of promotional formalities, raising funds, procuring men, machine and materials and operation of business. Frederick Harbison has enumerated five entrepreneurial function of a women entrepreneur as follows: 1. Exploration of the prospects of starting a new business enterprise, 2. Undertaking of risks and the handling of economic uncertainties involved in the business. 3. Introduction of innovations or imitation of innovations. 4. Co-ordination, administration and control. 5. Supervision and leadership. The fact remains that, like the definition of the term entrepreneur, different scholars have identified different sets of functions performed by an entrepreneur whether man or woman. All these entrepreneurial functions can be classified broadly into three categories, which are given below:

Innovations: Innovation is the basis function of woman entrepreneur. She has to

introduce new product, creation of new markets, application of new process of production, discovery of new and better sources of raw materials and developing a new and better form of industrial organization. Risk-bearing: It is the fundamental function of a woman entrepreneur. It refers to take the responsibility for loss that may occur due to unforeseen contingencies of the future. A woman entrepreneur visualizes opportunities for introducing new ideas and handles economic uncertainty. She is a self confident and highly optimistic lady willing to assume the risk involved in innovations, new ventures and expansion of an existing venture. Organization building: Organization and management of the enterprise is the main function of a woman entrepreneur. It refers to bring together the various factors of production. She alone decides the lines of business to expand and capital to employ.

These are the basic essential functions of a women entrepreneur for establishing an enterprise.

2.6 Qualities of Women Entrepreneur

The Qualities of a woman entrepreneur are described below:

Accept Challenges- Women entrepreneurs have the ability to accept challenges.

Though there are some barriers for women entrepreneur, but they face and accept challenges to achieve their goal. They strive in this competitive world to reach to the top level. Ambitious-They aim for the top position in the business world and their dreams are big. Enthusiastic- Women entrepreneurs have the enthusiasm to learn new ideas. They have great eagerness to do new things.

Hard worker- Women are hard workers as we all know that women have to struggle to
exercise their rights. Because of hard working, women have achieved equal rights like men. Patience- Whether it is the office or home, the way of handling any situation of women is marvelous. Now women are becoming successful entrepreneur for their patience. Motivation & Skilful- When a woman has decided to reach to a certain position, she self-motivates herself by doing new and creative things. They have the ability and the expertise to do their work skillfully. Unquenchable Optimism-Women thirst for optimism cannot be satisfied. She is always optimist for a positive attitude towards difficulties. Adventurous & Conscious-Women take risks and move ahead its their risk taking ability which makes them known to the world. Women are conscious and aware about the ground realities. She is aware of her surroundings and who she is (her identity). Educated- Women are educated and hence intelligent. They are qualified and have good education of which they make best use. Keenness to learn and imbibe new Ideas & Experienced-Women Entrepreneurs is always eager to learn new things and to absorb new ideas in themselves. They already have an experience to work under pressure and do work in a terrible situation.

These are the most important qualities of a women entrepreneur which we have seen in their performance.

2.7 Factors affecting woman entrepreneurship development in Bangladesh

It has been found from study that the condition of women entrepreneurship in Bangladesh is very disappointing, although women have tremendous potential for entrepreneurship development. Various socio-demographic and economic factors are responsible for such low growth of women entrepreneurship in Bangladesh. An attempt has been made in this section to identify some of the very important factors affecting women entrepreneurship in Bangladesh.

Social and Demographic Development

Factors

affecting

Women

Entrepreneurship

a) Societal values: Women in Bangladesh live within the constraints of a conservative

society where men are the customary bread earners. For this reason, the concept of women businessperson is still not well accepted in the family and society. Still now, society identifies business as a mens job. Society and families allow women to undertake a business and trade if it can be done at home.

b) Marital relation: Marital status of women is an influential factor affecting their

entrepreneurship development. This factor can affect womens entrepreneurship in both negative and positive way. One of the entrepreneurs interviewed for the present study got access to productive resources like land and capital and social network (two essential element of entrepreneurship development) through marriage. One of them got access to institutional loan through the social status of her husband. One interviewed entrepreneur was found happy with her marital status. She reported that her husband helps her procuring raw materials and in getting access to information.

c) Sexual violence and sexual harassment: Sexual violence and sexual harassment is
another big problem faced by women entrepreneurs. In many cases, women have to give up their business because of sexual violence. One of the women entrepreneurs interviewed for the present study reported that because of sexual harassment, she is unable to expand her nursery business.

d) Lack of Social asset: Social asset, such as networks of contracts and reciprocal
negotiations that can be called on in time of need, and political influence over resources are essential factors affecting entrepreneurship development. But women of Bangladesh lack these factors since Bangladesh is a male dominated conservative society.

e) Law and order situation of the country: Adverse law and order situation existing in
Bangladesh is a great social problem in the development of women entrepreneurship. Women are more vulnerable to hijacking, snatching and extraction than men. Mobility of women is restricted to a large extent due to these vulnerabilities, whereas mobility is a essential condition of good and efficient entrepreneurship. Women face insecurity not only in the street but also in offices and residence.

Economic Factors affecting Development of Women Entrepreneurship

Access to institutional credit is the most influential economic factor in the entrepreneurship development. Womens access to human capital like education and skill training is also very limited. In these days of globalization, access to technology and information are two influential factors affecting development of entrepreneurship. a) Access to land: Gender differentiated right to land is the main reason for women's
unequal access to productive resources. Islam, the dominant religion in Bangladesh did not provide equal rights to son and daughter to their parents' property. The next dominant religion in Bangladesh is Hinduism and it did not provide women any right to property. State laws and policies are also not conducive to render property ownership to women.

b) Access to credit: Credit plays a central role in industrial development. So access to

credit facilities in the modern economic world is a determining factor of the level of economic activity and growth. The financial institutions and banks generally extend credit facilities for women under micro credit oriented poverty reduction program. This is a Bangladesh Bank circular directing the commercial banks to lend 15 per cent of their lending capital for industrial sector. Five per cent is supposed to be lent for small-scale industry (SCI) sector. But there is no special circular regarding lending for women. Therefore, it becomes difficult for women to reap any benefit from this credit program.

c) Access to education and skill training: To develop entrepreneurship, access to

education and skill training is essential conditions. However, womens participation in the higher education is very limited whereas for the development of competent entrepreneurship, higher education is of utmost necessity. Professional education is also essential for developing entrepreneurship. Women in Bangladesh lack this education. Womens access to skill training is also very limited.

d) Access to information and modern technology: Information crisis is severe among

the women entrepreneurs, whereas information empowers an entrepreneur to choose the right business. Because of the lack of access to information women often cannot choose

the businesses for which they have best expertise. Due to the same reason, women entrepreneurs also cannot find out most profitable market for their products.

e) Access to marketing facilities: In marketing, many women entrepreneurs incur heavy

loss and at the end, they were forced to give up their business. Women entrepreneurs often do not get any opportunity to participate in trade fairs. Participation of women in trade delegations and fairs abroad is not promoted and this restricts womens opportunity to have access to knowledge about the demand of their product abroad. The promotional organization also cannot support women in expanding and diversifying their business.

f) Absence of women-friendly transport and communication services: Dynamics

of entrepreneurship is greatly affected by mobility and access to communication services. Women need to have easy access to safe, secure and affordable transport facilities to procure raw materials and to send the finished product to the most profitable market. But It has been found that due to the absence of safe and secure transport facilities, women cannot earn high profit from their business.

2.8 Challenges of Women Entrepreneurship

Since women are new in certain aspects of entrepreneurship, they face constraints in many ways, causing hindrances to their regular activities: 1. Male middlemen suppliers, contractors and exporters dominate the industry and take advantage of women's isolation in the home and lack of access to credit, supplies and knowledge about the economy of their work. 2. Women are handicapped in the current centralized wholesale market set-up controlled by men. 3. Women, due to their physical stature often encounter "mastans"(hood looms) rowdy males, whom they find hard to tackle and are stressed to pay money on demand. 4. Women entrepreneurs are often cheated by their male partners in trade through unscrupulous means which may turn hazardous when apt to encounter. 5. They are generally poor and lacking in both education and self-confidence. 6. Women have no legal knowledge or help in protecting their industries and often fall victims to illegal threats or criminal offences. 7. Problems in business are various. Inadequacy of capital is still the main problem and where available the high interest rates discourage investment. 8. Non-availability of efficient or skilled labor, absence of marketing facilities for women and the absence of proper sales centre are some of the major obstacles to smooth transactions in business. 9. Lack of improved implements and machinery, existing competition faced due to expansion of production, difficulty in the procurement of raw materials, problems of sales collection, problems increased by middlemen, constraints in transportation and marketing are existing problems for business. 10. Lack of management and production skill, lack of healthy workplace environment and especially lack of training facilities are some of the major constraints which should be overcome for steady functioning of the business. 11. Government fiscal policy and the income tax policy (VAT & Tax) are not favorable to a Woman Entrepreneur. 12. Bank loan procedures are not that easy because of some bureaucratic problems.

13. Women Entrepreneurs basically start their entrepreneurship on SME idea based. For SME Idea based business government policy is not favorable for the protection of the ideas. 14. Lack of recognition from the society before success makes the Women Entrepreneur to loss their motivation. 15. Absence of advisory help and lack of patience are also another challenges of Women Entrepreneurship.

2.9 Problems of Women Entrepreneur

Women entrepreneurs encounter two sets of problems, viz., general problems of entrepreneurs and problems specific to women entrepreneurs. These are discussed as follows: Problems of Finance: Women entrepreneurs suffer from shortage of finance on two counts. Firstly, women do not generally have property on their names to use them as collateral for obtaining funds from external sources. Secondly, the banks also consider women less credit-worthy and discourage women borrowers on the belief that they can at any time leave their business. Thus, women enterprises fail due to shortage of finance. Scarcity of Raw Material: Most of the women enterprises are plagued by the scarcity of raw material and necessary inputs. Stiff competition: Women entrepreneurs do not have organizational set-up to pump in a lot of money for canvassing and advertisement. Thus, they have to face a stiff competition for marketing their products. Limited Mobility: Women mobility is highly limited due to various reasons. A single woman asking for room is still looked upon suspicion. Family ties: It is mainly a womans duty to look after the children and other members of the family. In case of married women, she has to strike a fine balance between her business and family. Her total involvement in family leaves little or no energy and time to devote her business. Lack of Education: Due to the lack of education and that too qualitative education, women are not aware of business, technology and market knowledge. Thus, lack of education creates problems of women in the setting up and running of business enterprises. Male-Dominated Society: In practice, women are looked upon weak in all respects. Women suffer from male reservations about a womans role, ability, and capacity and are treated accordingly. Women are not treated equal to men. This in turn, serves as a barrier to women entry into business. Low Risk-Bearing ability: Women lead a protected life. They are less educated and economically not self dependent. All these reduce their ability to bear risk.

In addition to above problems, inadequate infrastructural facilities, shortage of power, high cost of production, social attitude, and low need for achievement and socio-economic constrains also hold the women back from entering into business.

2.10 How can the problem be overcome? Women have to go through the same stages of setting up an enterprise as do men. They face similar challenges, irrespective of gender based social impediments like social stigma,
unfavorable infrastructure, support systems, etc. which block their entry and reduce their pace of growth.

The need today is to help women overcome these blocks and draw maximum participation from them to
set up enterprises, which will help them.

Educate/train the women entrepreneurs. Make easy finance available Develop special schemes for women entrepreneurs Achieve self reliance and place women entrepreneurs at par with their male counterparts
Develop gender sensitivity Examine the processes of gender inequality Acquire skills of identification of potential women entrepreneurs Empowerment is not only an external process, but a process that has to bring about intrinsic changes in women as well as in men When women get organized and raise their consciousness about their disempowerment and use their critical understanding to organize themselves and struggle for greater access to resources, there are very few problems they could face.

2.11 Growth and Development of Women Entrepreneurship

Women in Bangladesh constitute around half of the countrys population. Hence they are regarded as the Better half of the society. But in real life, the truth prevails otherwise. Our society is still male dominated and women are not treated as equal partners both inside and outside four walls of the house. In fact, they are treated as, Abla, i.e. weak and dependent on men. Days are gone when women in Bangladesh remained confined to within four walls of their homes and their immense strength and potential remained unrecognized and unaccounted for. Now, they are increasingly participating in all spheres of activities and they have started plunging into industry also and running their enterprises successfully.

The general consensus that is emerging in all discussions relating to the development of women is that promotion of women entrepreneurs should form an integral part of all development efforts. The experience of the United States where the share of women owned enterprises is continuously on increase strengthens the view that the future of small scale industries depends very much on the entry; of women into industry. Several national of international organizations agencies have appreciated the need for & importance of developing women entrepreneurs in recent years. Like other developing countries women of Bangladesh are coming forward from their binderies of getting involved in various sectors as an entrepreneur like poultry firm, cottage industry, beatification, garments industry etc. Now, they have realized their potentiality as an independent person. But, the development of women entrepreneurship is expectedly low in the country because of various unfavorable conditions. Many families in Bangladesh do not allow women to work outside the home or start their own business to develop/ increase the participation of women in business sector, both Govt. & other private organization should take necessary steps.

2.12 Supportive organizations of Women Entrepreneur

Bangladesh Women Chamber of Commerce and Industries (BWCCI) Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce & Industry(FBCCI) Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) Micro Industries Development Assistance & Services (MIDAS) Grameen Bank Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) PROSHIKA Women Entrepreneurs Association (WEA) WISE Bangladesh Federation of Women Entrepreneurs (BFWE)

2.13 Recent realization on Women Entrepreneurship

Despite the problem of serious under-enumeration of women's involvement in economic activities in a sex segregated society as ours, the potential of women's economic contribution is now well recognized. Greater participation of women in remunerative work is improving their living conditions and bargaining positions in the households and wider community. It is often the case that most of women's labor in economic activities basically saves expenditure for the household, but women are not considered income earners, as the output of their labor is not always marketed by themselves. The distinct groups of women participation in economic activities outside the homestead are: a) Women in rich and moderate male-headed households. b) Women in middle and low-income male headed households, and

c) Women in households headed by females. The importance of women's entrepreneurship development focuses on women's development in general and their participation in income generating activities in particular, while it deserves a special consideration in rational development planning on two counts. First, leaving the women, who comprise about half the total population, outside the purview of development, no nation, can achieve any significant degree of success. It would be like working half strength compared to nations where women make full participation. Secondly, women's participation in gainful labor is expected to reduce fertility, a common development goal of most developing countries, particularly so for ours.

2.14 Key to success of Women Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh

Everything in the beginning does not go in favor of any Entrepreneur. So every Women Entrepreneur should have enough patience to carry on. Every Women Entrepreneur should posses a long term vision to success. Ambition is regarded as an inspiring fact to be a successful Women Entrepreneur. Honesty and integrity smooth the way to success. Hardworking ability boosts the confidence of Women Entrepreneur. Family inspiration never let them down. Engaging in production or rural industrial activities seems to be the most viable avenue for which the women should be assisted to take up. Non-government organizations have equally joined hands with the government efforts for economic salvation and provided various forms of opportunities for women to help them earn their living, paving the way for greater entrepreneurship development. The urban areas have greater opportunities for business development but the areas where women lack assistance is in the access to credit, provision of skill training, and market facilities. Development of Banks with separate advisory service cell for women. Separate counters in counters in commercial banks for women. Arrangement of exclusive fairs to promote products manufactured by small & cottage based units. Fixed quota of stalls for women entrepreneurs at export fairs. Special market facilities both in the domestic and the international arena.

03. Findings and Analysis

3.1Reflection of success of Women Entrepreneur
The success of the women entrepreneurs have been reflected in their socio-economic developments. The economic solvency and changes in the homestead and the enterprise, speak of their untiring efforts and the urge for a better life. Similar are the social and socio-psychological changes where even the gain in the courage to talk with people regarding business or any trade and the knowledge to distinguish between good and bad investments and transactions, are great achievements. The nature of changes due to success in business has been observed economically both at the homestead and also within the enterprises or the workplaces. Socially and psychologically, the individual qualitative changes are the most effective for it helps the individual to develop herself through her own initiative and perseverance. Participation in decision making in family matters and also matters of social importance, removal of social seclusion or the religious sanctions against working women and also decrease in social discrimination against these working women are some of the fruitful achievements. Her increase in income is also an increase in the family income, and it provides the family members to have access to a better life-style, including education and better health for the children. Modernization of the work-place, introduction of new technology for increased production, increase of workers, along with the increase in the purchasing power upgrades her status both socially and economically. Increased self-confidence through participation in trade and generation of income had blessed most of these women with a home and a prosperous future.

Figure: Percentage distribution of women entrepreneurs by the year of the establishment of their enterprises.