WOMEN'S BUSINESS

One of the popular topics of our generation, gender equality, is increasingly affecting economic relations too. Women have long held managerial positions in various companies. Nevertheless, female entrepreneurship has become a separate phenomenon of any economy due to increasing public activity of women.

Today, women are a key asset in growing economies all over the world: in Europe, in the Middle East, in Africa.

The number of businesswomen is growing in Azerbaijan too. The government pays special attention to the development of female entrepreneurship. But until now, both the mental stereotypes and non-gender business problems have remained the main problems on their way to success.

Silent revolution

Women's entrepreneurship is traditionally considered a business managed by women. A massive entry of women into entrepreneurship in the twentieth century is called a silent revolution. It is believed that the women's business has features associated with their socio-psychological nature: an ability to create new ideas under unusual circumstances, to encourage confidence, intuition, etc.

According to experts, the female entrepreneurship is increasingly dynamic in the US with over 30% (and growing) of small businesses managed women. Globally, women own more than a third of their business and employ a quarter of the workforce. In families where both spouses are working almost 25% of women earn more than their husbands.

According to the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs, woman entrepreneurs are prosperous in more advanced economies. Women owning a business in countries with industrial markets can take advantage of great opportunities and resources, including access to capital, financial services and academic programs, unlike businesswomen in developing economies.

The overall ranking shows that beginning and experienced women entrepreneurs continue to achieve success around the world, despite gender-related cultural stereotypes that can create significant obstacles to the promotion of their businesses.

Statistically, the influence of women on world politics and economics is also increasing. Thus, in some developed countries, companies led by women provide up to 60% of GDP. For example, in Germany and the US, this percentage is 50-52%, in Japan - 55%, and in Italy - 60%. In general, women own a tenth of the world's resources.

Tradition and mentality

As for Azerbaijan, the development of female entrepreneurship is far from ideal but the trends are quite optimistic. Last year, the number of businesses founded by women increased by 7-8%. In general, women's share in the private sector of Azerbaijan reached 30%. Today there are almost 200 thousand companies managed by women.

"I think it is quite a high number, which will definitely increase. Azerbaijani businesswomen also make a significant contribution to the development of the private sector," Sakina Babayeva, COB of the Azerbaijan Association of Businesswomen, said.

However, despite promising statistical data, there are still some problems in this area, mainly related to the whole region or countries with similar economies and mental conditions.

Often, the women who intend to start a business in any country mainly face psychological pressure from the society. First, this includes a certain share of mistrust in the success of the venture, a frivolous attitude of men involved to the project. In other words, women need more time to prove their success. At the same time, a negative attitude of the society at the initial stage of business creates many internal barriers such as the fear of leadership or the fear of success. Women are afraid that there may be no second chance for failure. Another factor is the lack of a sufficient number of role models.

In traditional oriental countries, mental tenets that subconsciously instruct women to limit themselves to the role of a housekeeper add to all these negative factors as well. Yes, there are many women working in the East but their income is usually considered as a supplement to the family budget.

In Azerbaijan with intertwined cultures of the East and the West, attracting women to leadership positions in business is not so painful. However, women are mostly trying to engage in niche businesses that have long been considered "more suitable" for women such as education, medicine, textiles, and services. The overwhelming majority of various clinics and beauty salons, fashion houses and ateliers, educational courses for children are founded and operated by women.

In other words, a potential Azerbaijani businesswoman has to limit herself to a small or medium-sized business at best. Only a few woman hold leading positions in large holdings, banks, industrial enterprises.

Agriculture

However, even the women leading SMEs need support at various levels. At least at the initial stage, when it is much harder for women to raise necessary initial capital for a business, especially if it is a self-made business with no partners. In addition, financial and economic literacy, level of education and knowledge of Azerbaijani women is also limited. There is a number of other factors as well. Simply put, no matter how strong the business intentions of women are, it is impossible to succeed without support.

Therefore, state support for women businesses is necessary. It is important that the government of Azerbaijan consider this support as a program-level priority by including the main objectives of the program into the Strategic Roadmap for the production of consumer goods in Azerbaijan by SMEs.

As indicated in the document, there is no legal barriers in terms of gender involvement in doing business in Azerbaijan. At the same time, there are no certain benefits for women entrepreneurs.

Thus, it is necessary to create certain incentive mechanisms for the development of women's business. It is planned, for example, to create special business incubators to support the initiatives of women entrepreneurs to attract additional investment in their projects. Therefore, the support of economically promising business initiatives of women in the regions is important. This will help to solve the problem of women's employment in rural areas and, to a certain extent, will contribute to the development of the agriculture.

According to Mirza Aliyev, head of the State Service for Management of Agricultural Projects and Credits at the Ministry of Agriculture of Azerbaijan, five pilot groups of women have already been created in five regions of Azerbaijan for the development of female entrepreneurship under the second AZRIP project (Azerbaijan Rural Investments). "Our objective was to attract women in rural areas to business and ensure self-employment. We already have very positive results but we are not going to stop there. We have created special groups of young people who will form special business incubators. Within a short period, we could attract about 100 women to the project, and new enterprises were created at their own expense," Aliyev said.

Along with private funds of the entrepreneurs, the State Service has also allocated special grants to support them. "Currently, we have already issued two grants ₼5,000 each. At the same time, we solved the issue of sustainable access of women entrepreneurs to loans. As you know, the main problem of banks and credit unions today is the provision of collateral and the availability of a guarantor. Association of entrepreneurs gave them an opportunity to attract loans together, and each woman is a guarantor for the rest. Thus, the risks of banks are diversified. The return period for such loans is up to 5 years," M. Aliyev said.

Obviously, the dynamic development of such productive female entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan will contribute to the creation of new brands and export products. "Exemption from all taxes for entrepreneurs doing business in agriculture created serious opportunities for business development in the country, including women's entrepreneurship. That is why the number of women entrepreneurs who prefer the agrarian sphere is increasing," said S. Babayeva, head of the Association of Women Entrepreneurs.

If globally a desire of women to engage in manufacturing is very useful for the development of the non-oil sector of the country, in a particular, say gender sense, this is a serious contribution to strengthening the economic independence of Azerbaijani women and solving most of their social problems. Therefore, it is more relevant than ever to improve the government support for women entrepreneurship.