Measuring the Biases, Burdens, and Barriers Women Entrepreneurs Endure in Myanmar

Dall'Aglio, Chiara ; Hayati, Fayavar ; Lee, David

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS;    WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS;    GENDER BIAS;    INEQUALITY;    SOCIOCULTURAL BARRIERS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-9451
RP-ID  :  WPS9451

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Entrepreneurs in Myanmar face manychallenges to starting and operating a business. As is theexperience globally, women often experience these challengesto a greater extent and face additional socioculturalbarriers, limiting their equal participation in the economy.To develop a better understanding of the dynamics holdingback private sector development, especially for women, thispaper uses data from the first-of-a-kind, firm-level dataset available in Myanmar. The analysis explores the varianceof experience female-owned micro, small, and medium-sizeenterprises face compared with their male-ownedcounterparts. The paper assesses the barriers imposed onentrepreneurs and their businesses and identifies firm-levelcharacteristics leading to the use of good businesspractices. Further, the analysis investigates the adoptionof gender and family-friendly policies, as an outcome and asa determinant of business success. The purpose of the studyis to gain a better understanding of the barriers togender-inclusive private sector development in Myanmar andprovide tangible recommendations to private- andgovernment-level actors. Overall, the analysis finds themajor constraints for women entrepreneurs are access tofinance and sociocultural factors, such as familyresponsibilities and household work.