Pakistani Women Entrepreneurs: Experiences of Starting and Growing a Business

Abstract

This report on “Pakistani Women Entrepreneurs: Experiences of Starting and Growing a Business” presents the conclusions and final set of recommendations based on outcomes from the research work that was carried out. The field research covered 20 women entrepreneurs from Islamabad and two other major cities. The 20 women entrepreneurs included in the survey have created 294 jobs for themselves, their family and others, of which 271 are full-time paid jobs. Such significant performance in job creation has occurred despite the financial, cultural and other disadvantages faced by women entrepreneurs in Pakistan. Although many admit to accessing microfinance without any problems, just as larger enterprises are able to attract loans from commercial banks, when it comes to finding appropriate funds to finance business growth, there would appear to be a “missing middle” to finance the progression from informal to formal, and from micro level to small and medium-scale enterprises. Therefore, the large majority (71 per cent) of the women had to depend on personal savings and family support for start-up finance. Consequently, the large majority (71 per cent) of the women entrepreneurs invested personal savings and family resources for start-up finance. Issues of land title and lack of working premises featured prominently among the major barriers experienced by women entrepreneurs in establishing and growing their enterprises. Many of the women entrepreneurs complained of problems in finding or building their own working premises, and some 75 per cent have to rent at what they regard as a very high cost. Only ten per cent of the women sell outside of their immediate local markets, therefore much has to be done to improve access to wider and more lucrative markets.