Gender, Entrepreneurship and Socioeconomic Reparation in South Africa

Abstract

Entrepreneurship development has become recognized as a functional means of tackling South Africa's socioeconomic challenges of slow growth rate, rapidly increasing unemployment, and racially inequitable distribution of income. However, current policies and programs ignore the potential input of the female gender. Yet, females are proven to be capable of using their peculiar gender dispositions effectively as small and micro entrepreneurs. The article examines the socioeconomic outcomes of South Africa's systemic crisis, gender-specific influences on entrepreneurial supply and alternative women-in-entrepreneurship programs that could be implemented with sensitivity to that country's sociocultural diversity.