Determinants of Enterprise Choice of Women Participants in South East Entrepreneurship Development Programme, Abia State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the determinants of enterprise choice of women in South East Entrepreneurship Development Center, Umuahia, Abia State. Multi stage sampling procedure was used to select 125 women from South East who participated in the training programme. Data for this study were collected using structured questionnaire and Focus Group Discussion and analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings shows that mean age of the participants was 42 years. On different type of enterprise engaged in by the participants 20.0% were agro-processing, fish farming (8.0%), poultry (15.6%) , rice farming (8.0%), tailoring (8.0%), soap making (12.0%), hair dressing (8.0), confectionaries (11.0%), bead making (7.1%) and eatery (4.4%). Multiple regression analysis revealed that there was a significant relationship between age, marital status, household size, years of education, access to loan, access to network and choice of enterprise engaged in. The result further revealed business information of the participants after graduation, about 45.8% of participant registered their business while 54.2% did not register their business. About 46.7% were working alone while 28.9% employed other people and lastly 24.4% engaged family unpaid labour. The study concluded that age, marital status, educational level and access to loan were the major factors influencing the enterprise choice of women. The study therefore recommends that women should be encouraged by giving those grants and other financial assistance that will help them to be more productive in their enterprise choice.