The formal-informal dilemma for women micro-entrepreneurs: evidence from Brazil
Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy
ISSN: 1750-6204
Article publication date: 2 August 2018
Issue publication date: 2 August 2018
Abstract
Purpose
The present study aims to identify women microentrepreneurs’ motivations that may influence the legalisation of their businesses and their capacity to reconcile the demands of family and work in a developing country (i.e. Brazil).
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were used to gather data on women’s microentrepreneurial initiatives in three northern Brazil cities: Salvador da Bahia (Bahia), Fortaleza (Cear) and Belm (Par). Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse textual data from the 30 interviews. The content was standardised and subsequently analysed using NVivo and IBM’s Many Eyes data visualisation software.
Findings
The results suggest that these women opt for legalised individual entrepreneurship to access the benefits of formalising their businesses and to search for mechanisms that encourage a work–family balance. However, in the more rural city studied, women show greater resistance to, and more distrust of, the benefits of legalising their business, as opposed to women from the two more urban cities.
Practical implications
The results contribute to a better understanding of women’s motivations to legalise their microbusiness. In Brazil, the writing and passing of a law geared towards this type of entrepreneur (e.g. individual microentrepreneurs) has had a quite positive effect on the legalisation of businesses, in particular for women. However, this law has had a more positive effect in urban areas, which suggests that further dissemination is needed of the benefits of formalising microbusinesses in rural areas.
Originality/value
This study contributes to research that seeks to understand better entrepreneurial preferences (i.e. formal vs informal) and the role played by gender and legal, financial and family contexts.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the FEDER component of the European Structural and Investment Funds, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalisation Programme’s (COMPETE 2020) Project No. 006971 (UID/SOC/04011), as well as the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology’s (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) UID/SOC/04011/2013 Project.
Corrigendum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article Marques, C., Leal, C., Ferreira, J. and Ratten, V. (2020), “The formal-informal dilemma for women micro-entrepreneurs: evidence from Brazil”, Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, Vol. 14 No. 5, pp. 665-685, doi: 10.1108/JEC-03-2016-0008, did not include sufficient citation of the article Babbitt, L.G., Brown, D., and Mazaheri, N. (2015), “Gender, entrepreneurship, and the formal-informal dilemma: evidence from Indonesia”, World Development, Vol. 72, pp. 163-174, doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.02.019.
The following text has been added to the beginning of Section 2. Gender, microentrepeneurs and informality: “Some parts of this section are based on Babbitt et al. (2015).”
The authors sincerely apologise to L.G. Babbitt, B. Drusilla, and M. Nimah for any inconvenience caused.
Citation
Marques, C., Leal, C., Ferreira, J. and Ratten, V. (2018), "The formal-informal dilemma for women micro-entrepreneurs: evidence from Brazil", Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, Vol. 14 No. 5, pp. 665-685. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEC-03-2016-0008
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited