Apart from initiatives to allocate special job quotas for women in civil services and public sector corporations, professions and services, which have been close preserve of men, have been opened to women. Even armed forces including Air force have now openings for women in all cadres.
The ratio of women in civil services has gone up to seven per cent and public and private sector corporations including financial institutions, on average have five per cent women representation in all cadres, and equal opportunities and incentives are available for their career progression.
Being signatory to Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the government is trying to bring women in economic mainstream. In view of the limited direct employment opportunities, various initiatives are visible to prompt women to get self-employed by setting up their own businesses.
The nurturing of natural instinct of entrepreneurship by encouraging small businesses has been found in many countries as a powerful key to their economic development. Economies of high-income developing countries of South East Asia have thrived on their SME sector, which has been the main focus of their economic development strategies.
For economic empowerment of women, there is need to encourage and protect women’s role in economic activity in general and business woman in particular. Legislative protection to their rights is already in place through enhanced representation of women in Local bodies, Assemblies and Senate. Although there are constitutional guarantees for indiscriminate role of women, yet these supports, in a patriarchal society like ours, are of little significance in practical life.
Women in business normally suffer from peculiar disadvantages extending over technical, management and financial spheres. Despite growing inclination of girls towards business and technical education, their turnout from business schools and professional colleges including engineering and poly – technique institutes is still very low.
The girls need to be motivated to join professional and technical colleges especially in the disciplines of business management, marketing, textile and electronic engineering etc which facilitate taking up various lines of businesses suited to women as well as business environment.
The management and business education can also be acquired through short diploma programmes being offered by various business schools and private training institutes operating in all the provincial capitals and other big cities.
One of the main factors impeding women to come into business is their inaccessibility to institutional credit, which in turn is due to their incapability to offer collateral for acquiring loans. Secondly, banks are reluctant to finance women owned businesses for fear of default in repayment arising due to their lack of experience in business handling. Lately, this notion has been falsified due to rapid increase in the number of successful women-owned small and medium size businesses.
The newly set up micro finance banks have mainly encouraged women from low and lower middle income groups to set up small businesses by seeking collateral free loans. Since maximum loan limit of microfinance banks is Rs100000, additional loans for expanding business can be obtained from other specialized financial institutions like First Women Bank and SME Bank. Since the main parameters to assess viability of loan proposal are position of cash flows and growth in business assets, women entrepreneurs handling their businesses with reasonable operational efficiency have nothing to worry about arranging conventional collateral for seeking bigger loans. The growing assets of business would be most desirable collateral.
In the growth process, a stage comes when scale of production and quality of product manufactured/produced entails tapping international market. At international level, women trade bodies and professional associations have proved useful linkages in exploring and identifying export markets for products and services of women related businesses. The creation of women wings in chambers of commerce and industry in the country and women exporters participation in international trade fairs and exhibitions has further enhanced success potentials of women owned businesses.
The global markets have responded well to products of women entrepreneurs because of their universal nature of maintaining long-term relationship, which in turn is due to their sensitivity to cultural differences, their work organising capabilities and above all their aesthetic sense. Women need to be exposed to non-traditional businesses, where they can excel on the basis of their management and technical skills.
The rural women need to shift to ventures like fish pond cultivation, dairy farming, green houses (for cultivation of out of season vegetables and fruits), carpentry (for making fruit crates etc for packing) and bakery products etc.
For urban women, there are certain non-traditional lines of business, which if treaded with full determination, are bound to succeed. These businesses can be categorized as follows: -
Catering and fast food outlets: Catering is the business most suited to women from low and lower income groups. This is the basic skill they derive in the kitchen. By operating from their homes, they can make it a source of earning livelihood. They can create market for their services by supplying lunch to employees in offices and educational institutions and also can supply dishes to household clients who, for one reason or other, cannot cook themselves a variety of dishes for their invited guests. Fast food restaurants and eating houses of the modest size is yet another business most suited to aptitude and skills of women.
Apart from food, décor of a restaurant play an important part in attracting customers. The aesthetic sense of woman business owner can help her manage both aspects of this business effectively. Owing to fast turnover of restaurants and catering business, the owners can enjoy a good profit margin provided price/rates of the food items offered are modest and location is within the reach of middle income group families.
Textile sector also offers diversified business openings for women. Apart from large scale industrial units relating to spinning and weaving owned by few women from affluent class, a large number of women from middle income level have set up ready made garment factories. A majority of these garment factories on account of quality and exclusive designs of their products have captured a wide export market.
At the initial stages, the case of garments making business, one needs a modest amount of capital and if the owner responses to rapidly changing fashion trends of the market, a fast growth in the business can be expected, provided quality aspect is never compromised.
Women with limited financial resources, having expertise in embroidery work and tailoring can get orders / business from large and medium size garment factories for designer garments’ embroidery and tailoring work. This simply requires investment ranging from Rs50000 to Rs100000 for purchasing required sowing and embroidery machine and to start with they can operate from home and later according to their business needs can acquire proper business place / marketing outlet.
Women can go into woolen textile related knitted items business also. Machine-knitted sweaters, shawls stoles, socks and gloves have vast market at home and abroad.
Quite a number of women pass out from the textile designing institutes set up in Karachi and Lahore. They can start small projects of their own for providing designing and printing services to large scale cotton textile units on sub-contract basis. Presently 20 per cent of small and medium size units in textile sector do subcontracting with large units.
Food processing is yet another line of business matching natural aptitude of women for cooking. Apart from preparing traditional items like jams, jellies, pickles and squashes, they can set up small plants with an investment ranging from Rs100000 to Rs500000 for preparing packed snacks items like potato crisps, chicken spread, mayonnaise instant noodles, ketchup and sauces etc. These consumer items ensure fast turn over in the business and a wide profit margin. The raw material used in the business is mostly farm based and is available throughout the year in plenty.
Some of the women have ventured into cold storage business also with a moderate investment and have found it quite lucrative. Manufacturing of leather goods whether on large or small scale has also been found an ideal line of business for women. Since all the exportable leather goods items are subject to frequent change in fashion and design, women having better aesthetic sense and aptitude for designing are capable of giving innovative approach to their business to succeed. Leather goods like hand-bags, purses, jackets, coats and shoes command a perennial export market. As such women even with moderate investment capacity can find good prospects in this business.
Interior designing and furnishing: Presently, quite a number of women in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad have made big names in interior designing and furnishing of houses and offices. The enrolment of women in architectural engineering and discipline of interior designing is rapidly increasing in related professional institutions. As such women passing out from these institutions can start businesses of their own with a modest amount of capital. The success in this particular line of business depends totally on one’s natural aptitude for creativity and innovations.
It is globally recognized that women-owned businesses more often follow high quality and innovative strategies when compared to man-owned businesses. In view of dynamism and motivation among enlightened and upcoming women in Pakistan, one can visualize immense success potentials for them in various lines of business.