Female Entrepreneurship: characteristics, motivations and challenges of women entrepreneurs in the city of Luena (Moxico, Angola)

Abstract

This article addresses business entrepreneurship from a female perspective, with the aim of understanding the characteristics and identifying the motivations and challenges faced by female entrepreneurs in the city of Luena. The study is descriptive and adopts quantitative and qualitative approaches, using an online questionnaire with closed and open questions, which was administered to 41 women who are engaged in some commercial activity in Luena. The results show that the women entrepreneurs surveyed are educated, all with higher education or currently enrolled in higher education, almost half (46.3%) married and the rest single (53.7%). They are more motivated by “realizing the dream of owning their own business” (85,4%), “financial independence” (75,6%), “supplementing the family budget” (68,3%), and “lack of employment opportunities” (56,1%), and therefore consider themselves “entrepreneurs out of necessity.” The main challenges they face in starting their business are “insufficient resources” (56,1%), “difficulty in accessing bank financing” (82,9%), “little government support” (70,7%), and “lack of commercial infrastructure” (63%); in relation to business management, the greatest challenges are “difficulty in reconciling work with family responsibilities” (46,3%), especially for married women, and “the cost of purchasing goods and raw materials” (80,5%). This is a pioneering scientific study in this field and context and, due to its relevance, has the potential to stimulate and contribute to the debate on “female entrepreneurship” and serve as a reference for future studies, as well as supporting local government decisions on evidence-based entrepreneurship promotion policies.