The civil war in Rwanda resulted in the slaughtering of its Tutsi minority, as well as many moderate members of its majority, the Hutu, in 1994. Around 800,000 are estimated to have died in the genocide.
"In the 14 years since the genocide, when 800,000 people died during three months of violence, this country has become perhaps the world's leading example of how empowering women can fundamentally transform post-conflict economies and fight the cycle of poverty," according to a recent article in the Washington Post. "That is particularly clear here in Maraba, a southern village where a host of women -- largely relegated to backbreaking field work in the days before the genocide -- found unwanted opportunity in the fertile lands they would inherit from slaughtered husbands, fathers and brothers."
Maraba's women "showed more willingness than men, officials here said, to embrace new techniques aimed at improving quality and profit. Now, Maraba's female farmers are outdoing their male counterparts in both, numbering about half of all farmers in the village's coffee cooperative but producing 90 percent of its finest quality beans for export," according to the article.
Many microfinance companies focus on lending to women, because women tend to reinvest profits from their businesses into things such as food, education and their communities.
The march of female entrepreneurialism, playing out here and across Rwanda in industries from agribusiness to tourism, has proved to be a windfall for efforts to rebuild the nation and fight poverty. Women more than men invest profits in the family, renovate homes, improve nutrition, increase savings rates and spend on children's education, officials here said," according to the article. "It speaks to a seismic shift in gender economics in Rwanda's post-genocide society, one that is altering the way younger generations of males view their mothers and sisters while offering a powerful lesson for other developing nations struggling to rebuild from the ashes of conflict."
For more on microfinance, see Microfinance Institution Reviews. For more on women as entrepreneurs, see Women in Business.
Labels: Business, Economy, Women
The verdict is in: Men and women are, in fact, different, an SBA study has found--at least in terms of entrepreneurship.
The study found that gender does not affect the performance of any particular new venture, but that several other factors do. "Differing expectations, reasons for starting a business, motivations, opportunities sought and types of businesses…vary between the genders, and these result in differing outcomes," according to the study.
Below are excerpted the highlights of the study:
• Men had more business experience prior to opening the business and higher expectations.
• Women entrepreneurs had a larger average household size.
• The educational backgrounds of male and female entrepreneurs were similar.
• Women were less likely than men to purchase their business.
• Women were more likely to have positive revenues, but men were more likely to own an employer firm.
• Female owners were more likely to prefer low risk/return businesses.
• Men spent slightly more time on their new ventures than women.
• Male owners were more likely to start a business to make money, had higher expectations for their business, and did more research to identify business opportunities.
• Male entrepreneurs were more likely to found technologically intensive businesses, businesses that lose their competitive advantage more quickly, and businesses that have a less geographically localized customer base.
• Male owners spent more effort searching for business opportunities and this held up when other factors were controlled for.
• Differences between women and men concerning venture size and hours are explained by control variables such as prior start-up and industry experience.
• Researchers and policymakers need to understand that studies which do not take into account the differing nature of men- and women-owned firms could result in misleading results.
Labels: Men, Small Business, Women
Single women trail only married couples as the biggest demographic group buying homes, according to Mark J. Penn's book
Microtrends. In 2005, single women bought 1.5 million homes--more than twice the number that single men bought, Penn wrote.
As a result, "Home maintenance, home repair, and home security companies have an enormous new market to attend to in single women," Penn wrote.
What is the reason for this? There are many, of course, but Penn focuses his analysis on one in particular: there are simply more straight women than there are straight men. Part of the reason for that is that "gay men outnumber lesbians in America by approximately 2 to 1," Penn wrote. Further, more males die before adulthood than do females. Penn wrote that researchers attribute this to a phenomenon called the "'testosterone storm,' which causes more deaths among boys from car accidents, homicides, suicides, and drownings."
What all of that that means, as in musical chairs, is that some women are simply going to be left out.
In addition to the fact that there are just more single women than there are single men, there are a couple other reasons that could be influencing the vast number of single women who are buying homes. One is that single women stay single longer than they used to. "In the last decade the median age for marriage has increased by one year to 26.7 years for men and 25.1 for women," according to a study released by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2005.
Women are also gaining ranks in both college and the workforce. "From 1970 to 2000 the number of women completing college has nearly doubled and the number in the labor force has gone up by almost 40 percent," according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
Thus, with more women receiving college educations and then entering the workforce, there are more women than ever with enough money to purchase and maintain their own homes--and even more women who are becoming real estate investors. For more on that, see our article
Women Investing in Real Estate.
Labels: Real Estate, Women, Workforce
