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By Elizabeth Lynch, Linkages and Learning Associate, Women's World Banking
As a global microfinance network committed to low income women's economic empowerment, Women's World Banking (WWB) has undertaken research to understand how gender identities inform economic roles and responsibilities in poor households. This research is part of WWB's effort to help microfinance providers increase their impact on gender equity for low income women entrepreneurs through gender sensitization of financial services.
Association Al Amana, a WWB associate, is a leader in the microfinance industry in Morocco; it is the largest microfinance institution (MFI) in terms of portfolio size and in the top two in number of active borrowers. Fouad Abdelmoumni, Al Amana's Director, is an Advisor to the International Year of Microcredit and a member of WWB's Board of Trustees. In October 2002, Mr. Abdelmoumni approached WWB to conduct segmentation research of Al Amana's current client population in order to assess demand for individual loans. Group lending technologies typically do not require detailed assessment and recordkeeping of client economic data. In order to effectively estimate demand among current clients, Al Amana needed to take a closer look at its clients' economic portfolios.
WWB's analysis revealed significant gender asymmetry by business size; women tended to have much smaller businesses as measured by net monthly business profit and value of assets than their male counterparts. Subsequent analysis of Al Amana's entire borrower database reveals that this pattern is repeated throughout its client population. Follow-up qualitative research was conducted in October 2003 to understand how gender relations affect intrahousehold resource allocation and the capacity of poor women to grow their businesses.
The research identifies those aspects of gender roles and responsibilities that have the greatest impact on business performance. Recurring themes of restricted time, autonomy and mobility were key factors negatively influencing the performance of women's microenterprises. How men and women view themselves and others in a gendered society has a direct influence on the kinds of powers, motivations and freedoms each gender has for business growth. This research was qualitative and reflects the opinions expressed by interviewees during in-depth interviews and focus group discussions in the Rabat region.
Research Findings
Gender Roles and Responsibilities in the Household
Gender roles and responsibilities are both defined and fulfilled in Moroccan society by marriage. The man's obligation, as stated in the Quran, is to be the financial provider for the household. In return for this, his wife must obey him (principle of ta'a) and is expected to be the homemaker, mother, wife and financial manager. Traditionally, men have been responsible for everything outside the home, women for everything inside.
Changing Gender Roles in the Economic Sphere
Women's roles as financial providers for the household have been changing over the years in Morocco. Men have become less able to act as the sole providers due to structural unemployment and low real wage growth, causing more women to undertake business activities. Both male and female interviewees expressed ambivalence about this shift in roles.
Female Attitudes towards Women Working
Many of the female interviewees described themselves as being "forced" into business activities through economic necessity. Their ambivalence towards working was due to many factors including: fear of ashouma or shame, which limits the type of economic activity a woman can engage in and the extent of her mobility; resistance to doubling her workload (adding economic activities to her household and reproductive responsibilities) and low education levels-which interviewees said limit women to "menial" tasks such as cleaning the houses of wealthier Moroccans, sewing or petty trading. Many female interviewees said they would still prefer not to work, if given the choice, despite the benefits of the additional income.
Male Attitudes towards Women Working
Male interviewees expressed even more ambivalence than female interviewees about women working; illustrating the clash between modern economic demands and traditional values. Their reasoning included: fear that it would signal publicly that the husband could not provide; concern that a working wife could not fulfill her household responsibilities; belief that women working is forbidden by religion and fear that women will become more autonomous.
Definition of Success
When asked how they defined success, both male and female interviewees named the success of their children as the most important measurement. Men were much more likely than women to mention providing for their families as an additional measurement of success. Having a successful business was not part of how women valued themselves, while it was to a greater extent for men.
Capacity to Devote Time to Business
Time was identified by an overwhelming number of female interviewees as the greatest constraint to growing their businesses. Women's time was constrained in large part due to their household and reproductive responsibilities. While women have moved into the productive or income-generating sphere, men have not reciprocated by taking on any of the household responsibilities. Many female interviewees reported being able to engage in paid work only for a couple of hours in the afternoon and for several hours before bed time after the family meal has been cooked and the house cleaned.
Age / Marital Status
Divorced and widowed women thought that the fact that they no longer had to cater to their husbands meant that they had fewer constraints to growing their business. Among married women, those with young children had the least amount of time, while those with adult children had the most, especially if there were daughters and/or daughters-in-law living with them.
Level of Autonomy
The capacity to make independent business decisions is an important factor in any enterprise's success. Women expressed limitations in their level of entrepreneurial autonomy. For example, although legally a wife no longer has to ask permission of her husband to engage in paid work, this is still a widespread practice.
Location of Business
The vast majority of women in the sample had their businesses located in their homes while none of the men did. Women are more likely to locate their businesses in the household because of social and religious constraints on their movement in the public sphere as well as the constant demands of their household duties. This geographic limitation limits one's customer base to neighbors and friends, increases the probability of sales on credit rather than cash (and risk of non-payment) because of preexisting relationships with most customers, and limits production volume due to lack of space.
Mobility
Traditional cultural norms informed by the Muslim tradition of seclusion dictate that women may not be away from home for more than one night, and many are not allowed to stay away over night at all. This is particularly difficult for Al Amana's clients in Rabat who travel overnight to the North to buy contraband goods for resale.
Choice of Business Activity
Women in the research population were crowded into just two or three business activities, largely because these activities are home-based (so women can take care of household responsibilities), require little education (e.g. many girls are taken out of school so that they can do embroidery work) and require little investment capital. Women who moved into traditional male activities, e.g., the lucrative business of selling fish, were subject to a great deal of harassment by their male counterparts. Since the female interviewees tended to be crowded into just a few business activities, competition was high.
Social Networks
With male and female spaces so dichotomized, each gender uses their respective space to exchange ideas and make business connections. This is an area where women are not disadvantaged. For men the locus is mainly the café but also the Mosque and the hammam (public bath house). For women it is also the hammam and the various lifecycle ceremonies that they are responsible for, such as weddings and birth ceremonies. Women rely heavily on word-of-mouth to establish their business reputations.
Gendered Spending Patterns
Overall, the pressure on women to divert money from their business is high. Interviewees gave the following reasons for this pressure: they were engaged in paid work because of dire economic necessity; they were under constant pressure from their children of all ages to give them money; daughters have become increasingly financially responsible for their aged parents; and finally, women must spend money to maintain their position in a carefully constructed support system based on reciprocity with neighbors and extended family members.
Gendered Saving Patterns
In general, women are responsible for saving for family expenses and tend to keep substantial pools of cash on reserve for emergency purposes. This high savings rate constrained many of the female interviewees from re-investing capital into their businesses and speaks to the need for other financial services such as health insurance as well as financial literacy training.
Cooperation inside the Household
Married women said that a key element to the enterprise's success was cooperation with their husbands. High levels of cooperation imply alignment on goals and agreement over spending, savings and investment decisions, including whether, how much and in which activity the wife should work.
Level of Education
Of the sample interviewed, almost all of the women were illiterate while none of the men were. Morocco has the highest gender gap in education in the Middle East and North Africa region. While many illiterate people do have very successful businesses, illiteracy does cause limitations, especially as businesses become more formal.
Initial Capital Base
Building sufficient capital to expand a business beyond small income generating activities is difficult for many women as they have limited access to credit and are disadvantaged due to inheritance practices and lack of property rights.
Morocco suffers from high unemployment and stagnant macroeconomic growth. As resources become scarcer and more men are losing formal sector jobs, increasing numbers of women are starting microenterprises to supplement household income. As the results of WWB's research illustrate, their businesses are often not high growth because of the complex set of gender identities, roles and responsibilities that tend to constrain business performance. The gender analysis of Al Amana's customer base has helped the institution understand the differentiated needs of its male and female clients; this understanding will inform the design of gender sensitive products in the future.
The full report of this research will be available on WWB's website, www.swwb.org, in August 2005.
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