Global Journal of Management and Business Research, E: Marketing, Volume 21 Issue 4

© 2021. Jim Secka & Lamin B. Ceesay. This research/review article is distributed under the terms of the Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). You must give appropriate credit to authors and reference this article if parts of the article are reproduced in any manner. Applicable licensing terms are at https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Determinants of Women Participation in Business Start-Ups: Empirics of Motivators, Challenges and Opportunities By Jim Secka & Lamin B. Ceesay University of the Gambia Abstract- A study of women entrepreneurship remains highly limited in the extant literature. Perhaps this has contributed to the slow growth of women-led start-ups, particularly in the developing economies. 1 Although several (prior) studies have hinted some peculiar characteristics defining the roles and growth potentials of women entrepreneurs in other parts of the world, there is yet a limited study in the field particularly in the Gambia. Consequently, this study seeks to address this gap by identifying the challenges, and opportunities experienced by women entrepreneurs in the Gambia. To do this, we employed a qualitative study of randomly selected businesswomen in three regions. The findings showed that women entrepreneurs experienced various challenges, including, access to finance, lack of government support, limited access to equipment or working materials, poor infrastructure problem, cumbersome regulations, and tax obligations. Moreover, our study reported the existence of fewer opportunities for women business operators such as the availability of entrepreneurship training programs, and business registration processes. GJMBR-E Classification: DeterminantsofWomenParticipationinBusinessStartUpsEmpiricsofMotivatorsChallengesandOpportunities Strictly as per the compliance and regulations of: Global Journal of Management and Business Research: E Marketing Volume 21 Issue 4 Version 1.0 Year 2021 Type: Double Blind Peer Reviewed International Research Journal Publisher: Global Journals Online ISSN: 2249-4588 & Print ISSN: 0975-5853 JEL Code: M00