Does Participation Of Women On Micro And Small Scale Enterprises Address Poverty In Northern Ethiopia? Evidences From Adwa, Aksum And Shire Towns

Araya Mebrahtu Teka

Lecturer, Department Of Economics, Adigrat University, P.O. Box 161, Adigrat, Tigrai, Ethiopia

Email: arayamebrahtu@gmail.com/araya_meb@yahoo.com January / 2014 Adigrat, Ethiopia

Accepted 22 April 2014

Abstract

As an engine of economic growth and women empowerment, micro and Small Scale Enterprises (MSEs) have taken considerable focus in Ethiopia. To explore the impact of women’s participation on MSEs on Poverty; primary data from 300 women MSE operators and non participants from Shire, Aksum and Adwa were collected.  FGT, Gini index, logit model and PSM were used to analyze the data. 24.2 percent of the households were living below the poverty line in which 20.1 percent of the MSE participants and 27.2 percent of the MSE non participants are poor. Experiencing cyclical moves in the growth rate of income, the mean monthly income of the participants was 2.165 times higher than that of non participants and Current capital of the participants was 2.05 times higher than the non participants. With inequality level of 0.47, there was high income inequality (0.48) in MSE non participants than their counterparts (0.35). Participation has a positive impact on poverty which significantly affects on the level of consumption, income and capital of the households. Number of male adult household members (-0.67), experience of shocks (1.76), sex of the household head (2.19) and family size (0.38) were the determinants of participation on MSEs, at less than 5 percent level of significance. Financial problem (28.6 %), poor management practices(14.9%), poor saving habit(14.9 %), conflict among members(13.1 %), lack of demand driven training(11.9%), market and promotion problem(9.5 %) and others( administrative) problems( 8.9 %) were the dominant factors for the failure which demands market based short term trainings focusing on saving, conflict resolution and improving access for finance.

Keywords: Determinant, Gini index, MSE, Poverty and PSM.