Women Entrepreneurs’ Land Ownership and Performance of their Manufacturing Enterprises in Kenya

Abstract

Despite the government's efforts to attract women into the manufacturing sector, ranging from
legal, fiscal and affirmative actions, very few women entrepreneurs operate in this space. And yet
manufacturing is a high-value sector where women can enjoy producing and trading opportunities
for their products and earn more, leading to their economic empowerment. One of the hurdles to
entry into this sector for women has been a lack of land ownership and other productive resources.
The study aimed to contribute knowledge on how ownership of land by women entrepreneurs
operating in the manufacturing sector has affected the performance of their enterprises. The
specific objectives were to investigate the effect of women entrepreneur’s ownership of land on
the performance of their manufacturing enterprises and determine the influence of control
variables such as the number of employees, educational level, control of business earnings, credit
utilisation and experience on the performance of the women-owned manufacturing enterprises.
Primary data was collected using a structured questionnaire and complemented with published
data from policy documents. Descriptive statistics and regression methods were used to analyse
data. The study found that land ownership determines enterprises' performance, with those who
owned the land performing better than those without. They make higher profits than those who do
not own land. Experience gained by the woman entrepreneur, education level, networking,
business size and control of business earnings were other factors that improved performance. The
implications include incentivising women entrepreneurs to own land and appealing genderinsensitive laws, regulations, cultural practices and traditions prohibiting women entrepreneurs
from owning and using land and other properties.