African Women Entrepreneurs and Wellbeing: The Social Cost of Navigating the Gendered Terrain of Entrepreneurship and Social Reproduction

Background and Purpose

Women's entrepreneurship in Africa continues to grow amid economic precarity, limited formal employment, and persistent gender inequality. This growth is often presented as evidence of women's empowerment. However, such narratives overlook the underlying structural factors that shape women’s economic involvement. Their engagement with entrepreneurship and economic production is often framed as part of global capitalism at the expense of their connection to social reproduction. This divide comes at a cost to women, who are forced to navigate both economic production and social reproduction. Their work is often unpaid and home-based, and they have fewer financial assets and little collateral, which limits access to credit and pushes them into low-capital activities. Drawing on social reproduction theory, we explore the social costs borne by African women entrepreneurs as they navigate the divide between the private and public spheres of economic engagement.

Methods

This exploratory study was conducted through a collaborative effort between E4Impact, the University of Sacro Cuore Milan, the Catholic University in Zimbabwe, and Boston University. Data were collected in 2021/2022 through three focus groups: two in-person and one over Zoom. Study participants were recruited through convenience sampling from E4Impact Global Impact MBA in Entrepreneurship alumni (N=17). Participants operated in both the formal and informal economies. The data were transcribed verbatim and coded thematically.

Results

Findings indicate that women’s enterprises are predominantly small-scale, service-oriented, and closely connected to the household, reflecting the need to balance income-generation and caregiving responsibilities. However, women do contest these restrictions by entering male-dominated spaces such as mining.

Participants reported difficulty accessing credit, pressure from gender norms, and expectations to prioritize family over business, leading to time poverty. The absence of female mentors was reported as presenting the challenge of navigating complex social norms and expectations. Despite the valuable business acumen and networks male mentorship brings, they were presented as a social cost to reputation, un/intentionally perpetuation of gender biases, lack of gender/cultural sensitivity, and power imbalances. Furthermore, women's mentorship, when available, was said to face scrutiny because women’s visibility and influence were seen as a deliberate neglect of their domestic roles. The patterns observed translate into social costs for women entrepreneurs, which often go unaccounted for – e.g., mental strain, social isolation, time poverty, and constrained mobility.

Conclusions

Women’s entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe is influenced by both productive and reproductive labor, creating opportunities but also social costs and/or harm. The study highlights the importance of shifting the focus from an individualistic view of entrepreneurship to policies that address structural barriers faced by women, such as limited access to credit, lack of mentorship, and the need to balance household and economic demands. Policy initiatives could acknowledge the often-invisible social reproductive labor of women entrepreneurs and address the gendered systems underpinning these challenges. This study adds to feminist and development scholarship by illustrating how women entrepreneurs are situated within a complex system of familial/kinship obligations and the economic sphere of production, which they often navigate/contest at a cost.