Skills as a Barrier to Women’s Start Ups: A Model with Evidence from Eswatini - Zuzana Brixiová and Thierry Kangoye

Similarly, Onyango (2012) investigated the determinants of the performance of micro enterprises in the agricultural sector in Kenya and found that on top of business location, education and business training importantly and positively affect the performance of women entrepreneurs. [...] The return on search equals the initial endowment combined with the sales from the business net of cost of finding a business opportunity and net of disutility of search or opportunity cost related to home production. [...] (a) Who are the female urban entrepreneurs in Eswatini? In November 2012, the UN Eswatini surveyed 640 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in urban Eswatini (in Hhoho and Manzini regions) through face-to-face interviews.5 The sampling frame were all SMEs listed in the di- rectory of the SME Unit of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade. [...] In contrast, the age of an entrepreneur (some proxy for experience) negatively impacts sales for the best performing businesses in the sample for men, and for the least performing businesses in the sample for women. [...] Having an up-to-date license has also positive effect on the level of sales of both men and women entrepreneurs.6 6 Conclusions and policy recommendations This paper contributes to reducing a gap in the literature on gender gaps in en- trepreneurship in developing countries and especially in Africa.