Gender Policies in Entrepreneurship Development: An Intra-Household Market Analysis

The universal implementation of women empowerment programmes has received analytical attention within the economic theory context . A two-commodity structure of the customary household economy was conceptualized, and analysed under the usual assumptions to describe the nature of the intra-household market for women entrepreneurship. The low-income household system produces two hypothetical commodities namely, Women Entrepreneurship (WE) and Non-Entrepreneurial Works (NEW) which form the main elements of the Stone-Geary type utility function. A system of linear expenditure equation was derived and estimated by regression to yield the empirical parameters of demand curve for WE. while the supply curve was derived based on the traditional production function framework. The results of equilibrium analysis indicate that the demand for women’s time to work within the household cumulates at about one month per year. Also analysis gives an insight into the nature of substitution between WE and NEW, It does appear that decision by women to increase their economic output in the household is independent of imputed price of their output, with the implication that gender-segregated policies that promote access of women to land and capital would lead to increased household productivity and income. So also would policies that improve opportunities of women for paid employment help to increase the opportunity cost of their time and consequently to increase the value of their output from entrepreneurial activities in the household.