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Specifically, they investigated Women in business in is widespread among women
whether gender dynamics and MENA: facts speak volumes in MENA, it mainly takes the
biases exist in the process of raising form of unpaid family work
funding for new projects via the MENA is home to many women or own-account work; few
leading crowdfunding platform, entrepreneurs, SMEs and women’s women are entrepreneurs
Kickstarter. cooperatives but they can still face who employ other workers.
substantial problems. Experiences While innovative, employment-
Their results show that women vary greatly. creating, female-led start-
make up about 35% of the project ups are becoming more
leaders and 44% of the investors on A report by the International common in MENA, female-led
the platform. On average, men seek Labour Organization, ‘Constraints businesses are mostly driven by
significantly higher levels of capital and Good Practice in Women’s necessity and the lack of other
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than women for their projects and Entrepreneurship in MENA’ details opportunities. Accordingly,
also raise more funds than women. current attitudes towards women women’s businesses tend to
However, women enjoy higher rates in business and the barriers they be clustered in the agricultural
of success in funding their projects, can face at every level. Their and handicrafts sectors and
even after controlling for category conclusions show that: are, on average, smaller and
and goal amount. Only about 23% of more likely to be informal than
projects in which men invested had • Across the MENA region, those of men. Such small-scale
female project leads. Conversely, self-employed women tend to businesses are seldom covered
more than 40% of projects in which work in informal, micro-scale by social security systems and
women invested had female project businesses that are often labour law.
leads. In this case, women are more poorly paid and regulated
likely to invest in a woman, which is nor are they protected under • In addition to restricted
great news. law. Although self-employment access to finance and

7 year, Issue 26, Mar - May 2020 www.MiddleEast-Business.com
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