Influence of Demographic Characteristics on Bakery Business Activities among Women in Ghana

Abstract

Female entrepreneurship, particularly in the informal sector has taken a center stage among stakeholders and policymakers in an attempt to provide decent work for women and thereby reducing unemployment in general. Despite the inestimable contributions of female entrepreneurs to the Ghanaian economy, they are still overwhelmed by several constraints in their day-to-day business operations, from unfavourable demographic to economic and financial constraints. The study, therefore, investigated the effects of demographic characteristics on the business activities of 20 female bakers in the New Juaben Municipality of the Eastern Region of Ghana. Simple random and snow-ball sampling methods were used in selecting 15 registered female entrepreneurs and 5 non-registered female entrepreneurs respectively. Participants were interviewed. Pseudonyms were used to ensure anonymity of participants. NVivo was used to analyze the data and results were presented in themes. The findings revealed that age, educational attainment and marital status influenced the business activities of female entrepreneurs. It was found that older female entrepreneurs were supervising instead of getting directly involved in hard-core activities like mixing and baking. The study also found that participants experienced financial losses due to their low educational attainment. The study further found that the business operations of female married entrepreneurs were affected. The study concludes that demographic characteristics could negatively impact the business activities of female entrepreneurs. Hence, there is the need for strategies that will mitigate their impacts. National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) in collaboration with NGOs should organize regular training programme for female bakers in the municipality.