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OSSREA Publications Directory!
Gender and Entrepreneurship: Survival Strategies of Tanzania-bound Zimbabwean Informal Women Cross Border Traders |
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Author: Simukai Shamu
Year: 2005
Abstract: Poverty is on the increase in Zimbabwe. The formal sector is unable to absorb all the people in the working age groups. With a background of less education for women in the colonial era, women suffer most and so engage themselves in the informal sector such as border trade. It is against this background that many women have opted for cross border trade as a strategy to ease competition and cope with poverty. Crossing many borders to Tanzania to sell wares to get money is a challenge that demands that women negotiate the many obstacles on their path.
The study aimed to explore the survival strategies of Zimbabwean informal women cross border traders plying the new Zimbabwe-Tanzania route. The study, which is mainly qualitative, employed ethnographic methods. The study employed two methods of data collection namely, interviews and participant observation.
The study found out that Zimbabwean Tanzania-bound informal women cross border traders are a heterogeneous group of women in demographic and socio-economic characteristics covering married and unmarried women. These characteristics have a bearing on survival strategies that women employ on their businesses. The study found out that several strategies employed by women are determined by the fundamental need to survive and live at least above the poverty datum line. Their strategies are geared towards minimizing costs and maximizing costs and maximizing benefits. Traders depend on social capital in their businesses to replace capital intensive strategies. They use different social networks to cut costs in their businesses. They owe their success to the networks they create in their trading business. Women traders do not get foreign currency from Zimbabwean banks; rather, they work hard for the foreign currency in Tanzania and bring it to Zimbabwe. Some of it is used in Zambia, Tanzania as well as other countries of their operations. The study also found out that women are actors who study situations and strategically device strategies to minimize costs. They employ social networks locally and internationally involving both kin and non-kin to assist them maximize benefits. Generally traders are able to cope and at times expand their investment portfolio.
At the end the study concluded that traders should be understood not as unpatriotic citizens who deal illegally and waste foreign currency but as hardworking people committed to seeing their households, relatives and society at large living without poverty. Generally, the study is instrumental in making society aware that women are enterprising social actors who can react to poverty in a positive manner that helps cushion their households from the harsh impact of the economic meltdown. The study recommended that micro-finance organizations should consider the low income people, informal sector businesses as equally important.
Publisher: Not Published
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OSSREA Publications