AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CHOICE OF PERFORMANCE OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURÂ IN TECHNOLOGICAL AND NON-TECHNOLOGICAL ENTERPRISE IN LAGOS, NIGERIA
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The beginning of business ownership in Nigeria data back to pre and post-colonial era and involved commercial activities such as wholesale and retail trading of which women were pre-dominate. There were also enterprises such as weaving, fishing, food processing, agricultural production, blacksmithing, goldsmithing etc. Much more pre-dominant with the men. Nigeria enjoyed a phenomenal economic growth during the oil boom period of 1973-1980 with per-capital GDP rising from N25,740 in 1971 to N128,700 in 1980. In this period despite the dramatic rise in oil revenues, misdirected government policies left the country’s economy vulnerable public was often focus on costly prestigious and inappropriate infrastructure projects with questionable rate of return. The government also failed to strengthen public finance and pursed expansionary financial policies which created significant inflationary pressures. Inward looking industrial policies also bred a non-competitive manufacturing sector. The Agricultural sector was completely neglected as the real effective exchange rate increased due to oil rising of oil prices. The competitiveness of virtually all non-oil sector of the economy was eroded.
With sustained economic declination individual as well as government increasingly set up encourage entrepreneurship to enrage and possibly eradicate the economic depression. As more Nigeria fail to get employed in the formal and informal section, the need to own a business become more attractive and competitive especially for women who do not have as much opportunity as their male counterpart. There are also associated problem such as difficulty in getting financial, legal trade activities amongst other.
The Nigeria industrial sector is dominated macro and small scale enterprises which constitute 65.5% of industrial establishment. Medium scale enterprises constitute 32% while large scale enterprises make up only about 2.5% of the industrial establishment. In Lagos state Nigeria, both formal and informal economic activities are common large members of women work in the informal sector but their contribution to value added is not included in National account (Soetan, 1995).
There are variety of constraints on women and the ability of women to upgrade their production continuously. This include poor access to access to market information, technology, finance poor linkage with support service and unfavorable policy and regulatory environment.
Furthermore, concerted efforts are needed to enable women to make better economics choices and to transform their business into competitive enterprises, generating income and employment through improved production.
