The impacts of gender education on female entreprenuership: Breaking the glass ceilings for a prosperous new Nigeria

Grace A.-T. Scent , Christian Chima Chukwu and Obuzor Mezewo Emerinwe

Abstract
Gender education and entrepreneurship have become worldwide phenomena for women, particularly in patriarchy societies where all kinds of discriminations, subjugation against them are frightening realities of contemporary times. As a result, female entrepreneurship has been weighed down by poor education, social norms, and lack of access to free credit facilities. It is in this context that this paper examines the impacts of gender education on female entrepreneurship in Enugu urban, Enugu state, Nigeria. A survey design was employed and 300 respondents were selected using the simple random sampling technique. Out of this number of respondents, only 280 (90.33%) structured questionnaire were returned and analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The distribution of the respondents showed 210 (75%) were female entrepreneurs, while 70 respondents (25%) were male entrepreneurs. Among the findings, an overwhelming majority of the respondents are of the view that the female entrepreneurs are important for the socio-economic transformation of the Enugu State, and by extension, Nigeria. Secondly, the study agrees that there is hardly a society where gender stereotypes do not exist but that these aspects of the gender belief system which are anti- female entrepreneurs' development have been over taken by the power of gender education. In addition, the study shows that gender education is the most viable and veritable vehicle for guaranteeing and sustaining female entrepreneurs to continue to expand entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Thirdly, this study has presented a different picture of women making some tremendous efforts in spite of all odds cannot be underestimated because their contributions have been remarkable despite the challenges they face in their quest to transform the patriarchal Igbo society, especially Enugu State. Based on this, the study concludes that the contributions of female entrepreneurs in Nigeria's entrepreneurship development cannot be underestimated because their contributions have been remarkable despite the challenges they face. In this vein, the study suggests that gender education should be a priority to halt all forms of discriminatory practices against female entrepreneurs and in the same vein, calls for elimination of prejudices and customary practices that are based on the idea of the inferiority or superiority of either sex or on stereotyped roles for men and women. Above all, government should, through financial institutions, grant free interest loans to encourage female entrepreneurs plunge themselves into businesses to sustain the breaking of the glass ceilings.

Keywords
Gender; Education; Women entrepreneurship; Female entrepreneurship; Employment creation.

DOI
10.21472/bjbs(2020)071509

Full text
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