DOES HAVING CHILDREN REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE: THE CASE OF SOUTH AFRICAN FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS

Year 2019, Volume: 11 Issue: 1, 64 - 79, 17.06.2019

N Meyer E Keyser

https://doi.org/10.34109/ijefs.201911105

Cited By: 2

Abstract

Family responsibility has been identified as a potential unique female
entrepreneur challenge. Although some females may willingly enter into
entrepreneurial activity when having children as it may provide more work life
flexibility, some may be challenged by time restrictions especially when children
are still young. However, empirical data show that females who decide to become
self-employed may in many cases do so to enjoy higher flexibility but may be
restricted regarding growth and other factors such as finances, motivation and
support. In light of this, the purpose of this study is to identify differences
between two groups of South African female entrepreneurs: those with and those
without children. Differences were compared between groups considering several
factors such as, motivation, financial constraints, intention to grow the business
and socio-cultural barriers to name a few. The study followed a descriptive
research design using self-administered questionnaires. The questionnaires were
distributed to a purposive and convenience sample of female entrepreneurs from
all nine South African provinces resulting in a final sample of 510. Data were
analysed using reliability and validity analysis and Multiple Analysis of Variance
(MANOVA) and Analysis of Variances (ANOVA). Results indicated that the
only entrepreneurial variable or factors that were influenced by having children or
not were financial constraints, government support and socio-cultural barriers.
Factors such as intention to remain in business, intention to grow the business and
motivation returned non-statistically significant results for the said groups. The
results from this study link to previous findings indicating that differences were
observed between female entrepreneurs with children and those without. Further studies indicate that fewer differences were observed between male entrepreneurs
with children and those without children, therefore implying that the presence of
children among female entrepreneurs could be considered a unique challenge.

Keywords

South Africa, female entrepreneurs, challenges, children

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