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Throughout the world billions of people are purchasing mobile phones. A 2007 International Telecommunication Union report estimated that 3.305 billion mobile phones were in use. Rapid adoption of this technology raised hopes that people in the developing world would benefit from it (Gamos 2003).

In Kenya the demand for mobile phones is huge and continues to expand; many mobile users do not own a landline at home or at work. A 2005/06 Communications Commission of Kenya annual report showed that landline subscriptions had continued to decline, remaining below 300,000 subscribers, whereas mobile telephone usage had risen from 4.6 million to 6.4 million subscribers during 2005/06. ‘A substantial proportion of small businesses use mobile phones as their only means of communication’ (Vodafone 2005: 51). This confirms that in Africa the mobile phone is used as a substitute for rather than to complement a landline (Donner 2007). A mobile phone is seen to offer advantages over fixed lines.

A study of Kenyan women entrepreneurs revealed that the mobile phone had indeed affected the effectiveness and efficiency of women-owned businesses (Wanjira Munyua and Mureithi 2008). Has the application and use of the cell phone to enhance entrepreneurial success also contributed, however, to women entrepreneurs’ empowerment? This chapter discusses the business choices made by the women entrepreneurs who fall into different categories of capacity and size,¹ and explores how the use of mobile phones has facilitated their efficiency in managing micro-enterprises and their domestic responsibilities, and the implications for women’s empowerment.

The research context

Most of the Kenyan women entrepreneurs whom we spoke to indicated that their main reasons for going into business ventures included the need for achievement, autonomy and flexibility, along with providing for and educating their children (Wanjira Munyua and Mureithi 2008). Our 2008 study in Nairobi with thirty-three women revealed that entrepreneurship is becoming an increasingly popular career choice for many Kenyans. We found that while some individuals start businesses based on their need to be independent, most of the women chose the entrepreneurial route in response to external situations, including redundancies, frustration with their current workplace and pay, or a need for greater flexibility in their lives.

In recent years the Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) part of the informal sector has played an increasingly important role in Kenya. According to Ikiara (2001), and a World Bank report (2001), MSEs are regarded as offering an alternative route to economic growth, especially in the context of increased poverty and unemployment, as well as the advent of economic reforms that have led to the liberalization of the economy.

A survey conducted by Wolf (2001) in South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania notes that MSEs provide employment to more than 50 per cent of the income-earning population. The study estimates that in Kenya small enterprises generate 12–14 per cent of the gross domestic product. Kenya’s economic landscape also reflects the dominance of MSEs as the most dynamic aspect of the private sector (ibid.).

One significant characteristic of the sector is that as it has grown, it has also become an important employer of the female labour force in the country. According to the Kenya Rural Enterprise Programme and Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Baseline Survey conducted in 1999, the number of men and women owning micro-enterprises in Kenya was almost equal, at 670,727 enterprises owned by men compared to 612,848 owned by women. A great disparity is noted, however, in the type of businesses men and women choose, and the incomes generated by the businesses. Women are concentrated in community, social and personal service businesses (Republic of Kenya 1998, 1999, 2000). This survey seems to suggest that women may have opted for these types of businesses owing to the low demands in terms of new skills, capital and equipment required to operate in this segment.

Gakure (2004) found that women’s productive activities were concentrated in micro-enterprises that conformed to their traditional gender roles, such as food processing and garment making. The Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics (Republic of Kenya 1999) Baseline Survey reveals that while the numbers of women- and men-owned enterprises are almost equal, women outnumbered men in services (55.7 per cent women) while men outnumbered women in manufacturing (65.7 per cent men) and construction (91.2 per cent men). The choice of sector also seemed to define the profitability of the enterprises. Male-owned MSEs had 75 per cent more income than female-owned enterprises – women earned 4,344 Kenya shillings (Ksh) for every Ksh 7,627 men earned from their micro-enterprises.

A review by the Kenya CBS in the same period indicated that more female-owned enterprises (5,585) than male (4,045) closed down (Kibas and K’Aol 2004). Of those businesses that closed down, lack of funds was common to both women- and men-owned MSEs; lack of customers and too much competition accounted for 26.8 per cent of women’s business closures against 12.5 per cent of men’s closures. Women also cited personal reasons, for example having to take care of children, where it became increasingly difficult to balance work with family responsibilities. Taking care of a sick family member accounted for 33.1 per cent of women’s business closures, while for men it accounted for 20.3 per cent (ibid.). According to Mincer (1978) and Polachek (1981), women are generally at a disadvantage when competing with men for enterprises and job opportunities. Most societies expect women to leave the labour market for purposes of childbirth, childcare and the accompanying domestic responsibilities, skills that are undervalued and perceived as incompatible with enterprise and labour market opportunities. While government statistics indicate that, in recent years, the number of women-owned firms with employees has increased, even with this growth women remain under-represented in terms of their proportion of the high-growth firms.

Women’s business choices

As Gakure (2004) notes, most women entrepreneurs in Kenya tend to draw upon their domestic skills in their micro-enterprises. She subsequently concludes that as the skill base seems to determine the choice of the business, the choice of the business entered into is largely gendered in the first place. This is a reflection of the impact of Kenya’s cultural bias in education and training on career choices. Connell (2002) indicates that much of the gender construction in schools creates very distinct notions of what it means to be a man and a woman, with polarized attri butes for femininity and masculinity. Socialization in schools touches on the informal (hidden) curriculum, which is a critical dimension of schooling through which educational settings may introduce changes in social perceptions, but which generally continues to reproduce traditional values and attitudes. This socialization is achieved through a wide array of practices, ranging from administrators’ and teachers’ attitudes and expectations, textbook messages, peer interactions and classroom dynamics. There are also expectations in terms of the roles that students are supposed to play in the future, and these influence their attitudes, as well as behaviours practised in and outside the classroom.

A 2005 Population Council study noted that for all developing countries, approximately 10 per cent of boys and 40 per cent of girls aged between six and eleven never enrol in school. This is especially pronounced in areas where factors such as employment prospects and mothers’ education are lower, and where girls are more likely to have other responsibilities such as housework and childcare, and are even required to engage in income-generating activities to supplement the family household income. This is the case especially in most Kenyan lower-middle to low-income households.

According to Connell (2002), through socialization men assume the role of income provider and identify with masculine stereotypes, whereas women assume the role of homemaker and identify with feminine stereotypes. Consequently, men and women prefer job attributes and acquire skills that relate to their gender roles and stereotypes. Furthermore, if women have internalized the belief that they are not valuable in their own right and that as such their potential professional contribution is not valued either, it may lead to the perception that meeting societal demands is more important and more valuable than their personal dreams and wishes and, in actual fact, that fulfilling their own dreams is not a real option because there is no real choice.

Many women end up adopting socially constructed gender values which devalue them, creating an inability to recognize themselves, their dreams and aspirations in the context of social norms. According to Chege (2003), women who conform to gendered societal norms are the perfect embodiment of a Kenyan woman. Therefore, those who build successful businesses or careers are perceived to be venturing into masculine roles.

Women with this ‘strong female image’ may still hold and transfer societal myths regarding women entrepreneurs on to their business, affec ting their attitude and the ways in which they pursue business success and growth (Brush and Hisrich 1999). Further, women’s socialization may affect their self-assessment about being prepared with regard to business creation. Brush (1997) notes that ‘the gendered perspective of the founder influences the organising process and resultant new organisation, whether it is for high growth or not. This perspective creates unconscious biases regarding capabilities and potential.’ Our study also confirmed this notion that despite the growth of women’s own businesses, a large majority started small and stayed small, never employing more than ten people.

Gakure’s study (2004) in Kenya sought to determine the social factors that influenced growth and development of female-operated enterprises. This study found that the majority performed poorly. Could the control of choice to go into a particular sort of business or to go into business at all affect their efficiency and effectiveness? For most of the women (68.6 per cent) the decision to go into business was determined by people other than themselves. These included their husbands (24.6 per cent), parents (27.4 per cent) and friends (13.1 per cent) (ibid.). For the women who participated in the Wanjira Munyua and Mureithi study (2008), going into business was a way of contributing additional income to support their families, and for some it was necessary as they were the sole bread winner. For the women who chose their enterprise, their need to combine doing business with their domestic responsibilities was a significant factor in business choice.

The motivation to go into business, as well as the type of business chosen, influences the choice of information and communication technology (ICT) or tool that can be used to enhance their business and enable them to manage their homes at the same time (ibid.). Most women chose businesses that allowed them the flexibility needed to raise a family, and the communication tool – the cell phone – that facilitated meeting the demands of their double roles.

Computers are still a relatively expensive investment for MSEs (Wolf 2001). The Wolf study further noted that MSEs usually face a comparatively uncertain environment and entrepreneurs often have a short-term time horizon. Therefore the decision to implement and appropriate ICTs depends on the intuition of the entrepreneur, which is subject to their training and experience. This could explain why not all potential users introduce the different ICTs, despite their advantages.

Is the mobile phone contributing to businesswomen’s empowerment?

For most Kenyans the choice of owning a mobile phone rather than a landline is affected by many factors, ranging from the failure of Kenya’s telephone corporation to deliver on its universal access obligations, a more liberal regulation environment, and increased competition in the telecommunication sector (Mureithi 2005), to the users’ perception of convenience and affordability of the mobile phone. Penetration of the cell phone is high among MSEs in Kenya; Mureithi (ibid.) found in an industrial cluster in Nairobi that 93.8 per cent of the entrepreneurs owned cell phones, in contrast to 29.7 per cent who used fixed lines. Factors that affected decisions to own a mobile phone rather than a landline included the ability to communicate anywhere, any time, and subsequent faster sales of products, among other perceived benefits. The legal status of the business also seems to determine information needs and the ICT tools to use. According to Tandon (2002), small businesses usually have no option but to remain informal to avoid the challenges of taxation, reporting and licensing. Tandon’s study noted that business owners consider other communication tools besides the mobile phone only once they perceive the business to have grown.

Most of the respondents in the Wanjira Munyua and Mureithi (2008) study felt that the use of the mobile phone had improved their business’s performance through their ability to integrate business and family issues. They could also organize social meetings, such as those with women’s groups, through features such as the calendar and phone reminders. The mobile phone allowed them to have a sense of control, even when away from their business premises, and it improved their networks with friends and clients, as well as providing the ability to transfer money through the new service called sambaza credit (sharing of airtime).

When asked why they purchased a mobile phone in the first place, most of the respondents spoke of encouragement from their male partners, spouses, mothers and friends. Asked what the challenges were in using the mobile phone, the women entrepreneurs cited the high costs of operating a cellular phone in Kenya, as well as concerns regarding instances where spouses and male partners sought to find out the contents of some of the conversations conducted on the phone. Some of the women felt that there was a conditional benefit of the mobile phone owing to intrusion on their privacy. When technology like the mobile phone comes into the domestic sphere it potentially brings the world with it.

The phone can indeed be a great vehicle for networking and sharing information. The flipside of the mobile phone, however, is that it can tempt the user to blur the boundaries of private spaces, and this can become another source of tension in unequal gender relations. Huyer and Sikoska (2003) found that men frequently felt that the new freedom of women to have mobile phones was destabilizing their marital relationship. In most of the cases men monitored their spouse’s use of the mobile phone and Internet. Another study of women and use of mobile phones in Zambia (Wakunuma 2007) found that while mobile phones have had positive impacts for women, they seem to contribute to conflict in the household between spouses, with husbands and partners wanting to control how their partners and wives use the phone, and sometimes whether they are allowed to continue to own and use the mobile phone.

Most studies seem to point out the clear advantages of mobile phones for women entrepreneurs, but the questions can be asked whether gender inequality is being perpetuated in relation to women’s access to and use of mobile phones, and whether the use of cell phones contributes to women entrepreneurs’ empowerment.

In this context, what is empowerment? The case of Lillian

Lillian, one of the women entrepreneurs who participated in the 2008 Wanjira Munyua and Mureithi field study on the use of mobile phones among Kenyan women entrepreneurs, manages a family hair and beauty salon employing nine employees. Her business and situation corresponds with factors found in two categories of women entrepreneurs (see note 1), and her story provided an opportunity to explore, increase our under standing of and continue investigating the dynamics of ICTs and women’s empowerment in a real-life context.

Lillian had chosen a medical career and had embarked on it, completing the first year of a medical degree in Canada. She felt, however, that she had to abandon her medical career to help her family survive the financial difficulties they were encountering. Her mother called her back home to help set up her beauty and hair business as a partner, while Lillian’s older and younger brothers continued with their education abroad. Lillian decided to give up her needs for those of her family, even though this meant giving up on her dreams. She believed that as the only girl in the family it was expected of her to help her mother educate her brothers. She said: ‘I did not have my daughter Wanjiku then and being the only girl in the family, it was expected of me to come back home and that is the way things are.’

When Lillian made the choice to return home to help her mother set up and manage the business, she was excited to be of assistance to her family. She felt, however, that she had lost an opportunity to study medicine, which was her dream, and which she felt she could have linked into the hair and beauty business, therefore living her dream and helping her family at the same time. This is indicative of the many ways in which fear of disappointing their families and not living up to their mothers’ expectations, following habitual patterns of thought and action as well as their own low expectations for themselves, characterize many women’s choices and limit their dreams for their own lives (Blau et al. 1998).

Lillian’s actions seem to be at odds with her beliefs about herself and her capabilities, but they are in line with societal expectations. Nevertheless, Lillian is quite happy with her choices. Despite finding that their beauty business does not cover all her financial and professional needs, she does not consider what happened to her wrong in any way. She has accepted the option of helping out her family and at the same time getting a little money to educate her daughter. Lillian’s well-being at the time depended on her evaluation of her situation, which seems to have been based in socialized preferences. She seems to have adapted to her gendered situation and her analysis reflects her understanding of what is for her own good and the good of her family. But does this translate into empowerment?

Lillian confirmed that some of the advantages of owning a mobile phone (as opposed to a landline) were that one can be reached anywhere, and therefore she can conduct her business at any time of the day or night or monitor her household at any time. This gives her a sense of control and flexibility, both needed to manage her dual areas of responsibility (Wanjira Munyua and Mureithi 2008). She was given her first mobile phone as a Christmas present and uses it to conduct her business activ ities. She keeps in touch with clients, organizes debt collection and coordinates activities in the salon, along with arranging social activities such as monitoring her daughter’s daily activities and movements and keeping in touch with friends and other members of her family.

For Lillian the social and economic advantages of accessing and using a mobile phone for her hair and beauty business and for her domestic needs seem evident. The question has to be raised, however, whether patterns of gender socialization are being perpetuated and reproduced in the use of the new technology and choice of business, re-emphasizing the fact that technological innovation and the opportunity to become an entrepreneur do not guarantee empowerment for women, neither do they address the substantial obstacles to women’s social, political and economic development.

Empowerment or gender role entrenchment?

The contemporary concept of empowerment in Kenya rests on the assumption that increases in women’s access to resources like education, wealth and ICTs would transform them and, by extension, society meaningfully. It ignores the fact that women’s access is often mediated by poverty, classism, traditional divisions of labour, social traditions and expectations, racism and xenophobia, and that access can be empowering only to a small minority of women. It also ignores the notion that in many circumstances, although choices play a critical role, these are usually determined by social norms and what is expected of one as a woman or girl; therefore many choices do not necessarily serve a woman’s own interests and their wishes for their own lives. Lillian’s choice to come back home to help her mother with the family hair and beauty business was in response to her mother’s request for her to come back and help rejuvenate a dwindling family income.

Nussbaum (2000) suggests that many preferences are constructed as adaptations within a context of traditions of privilege and subordination. Seen from this perspective, a preference-based approach would tend to reinforce inequalities. When Lillian made the choice to return home she lost her opportunity to fulfil her dream. She chose to fulfil traditional expectations of her as a woman and daughter, rather than resist the norms of her context and pursue her own goals.

Nussbaum’s approach to adaptive preferences challenges the view that a culture/context-based understanding of what empowerment means to women would suffice when one strives towards social justice and empowerment. Rather, having the capability to do the things that people have reason to value is identified as a crucial concept. So, rather than simply evaluating the equality of and access to resources such as income and wealth, the analysis should ideally focus on people’s capability to take action (Sen 2000). According to Sen, ‘individuals have varying needs for resources according to their social and physical circumstances, and the special obstacles they face, among other factors. Therefore, even when people may have the same basic resources, they may end up being unequal in their ability to perform valuable human functions.’

Most of the women in the Wanjira Munyua and Mureithi study seem to have adapted to managing a combination of business endeavours and busy households. Men in business generally can focus more time on ensuring the success of their businesses. Harkim (2006) notes that most of the men in her study are married with children and seem to have the advantage of physically and mentally working longer hours because their wives are at home with the children. So even with women increasingly engaging in enterprises, they continue to be responsible for the domestic, unpaid, work.

From a feminist perspective this gender-based division of labour is hierarchical and patriarchal and therefore an issue of justice (Knobloch 2002). Knobloch identifies three aspects of gender-based divisions of labour. The first is that men do paid work while women are responsible for non-market, unpaid work. Second, most jobs are either ‘male or female’ and paid jobs done by women are often lower paid than the male ones. The third aspect is that women are most often held responsible (by social and cultural norms and unequal gender relations) for caring activities around a household, even when they are employed outside the house or have businesses that depend on them. Women therefore work twice as much as men, combining both the non-market economy and market economy work, often managing what she refers to as a ‘double day’ (ibid.). As a result, women choose occupations that allow them to balance paid work and domestic responsibilities.

To define women’s empowerment, we may need to deal with individual variability, allowing women to state which functions they care about, and examine their needs within these functions. There is a need to critically examine (Fraser 1997) the notion of women as universal caregivers and the unexamined and decontextualized acceptance of women’s preferences and desires, on the justification that ‘what is good for the individual is by extension good for the society’. This preference-based approach tends to reinforce inequalities, especially those internalized so strongly as to have crept into women’s dreams and desires, as illustrated by Lillian’s choices and her willingness to return home to a role of combining domestic and income-generation responsibilities in a traditionally female sector, and her integration of an ICT into her efforts to manage this gender-specific double role effectively. The striving towards gender equality and women’s empowerment in the ICT arena seems to require thoughts and actions that can move beyond accepted gender norms, even when the norms are being maintained and enhanced by women themselves.

Conclusion

ICTs have played a positive role in promoting development of women’s entrepreneurship in Kenya, and the mobile phone in particular appears to have had a huge impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of micro-enterprises owned by women. The cell phone does not, however, appear to have changed fundamental issues of gender relations. Instead, patterns of gender socialization and segregation are still being reproduced.

ICTs have been and continue to redefine gender relations in complex and multidimensional ways. The Wanjira Munyua and Mureithi study has provided insights into how the mobile phone, for example, can be utilized in ways that reinforce traditional ideas of how women and men should behave, while at the same time providing an avenue for challenging gender norms.

The study also confirms that technological invention does not guarantee empowerment. A vast majority of Kenya’s population is still untouched by the mobile phone revolution. Further, the availability of physical infrastructure or being connected does not necessarily capture actual use, since actual use is affected by sociocultural and economic factors.

Undoubtedly, ICTs can contribute immensely to development, but technology needs to be specially harnessed towards social roles through active human participation and mediation. Some of the women in the Wanjira Munyua and Mureithi study reported increased efficiency and indeed confidence when using a mobile phone for their business, and this seems to be almost universally true for different sociocultural contexts (Hafkin 2002; Gurumurthy 2004). Does this increased efficiency and confidence the women experience while fulfilling traditional gender roles, however, have the potential to change existing gender relations?

Note

¹ An International Labour Organization study on women entrepreneurs in Kenya (Stevenson and St-Onge 2005) provides anecdotal evidence of a profile of such women. The study found that Kenyan women entrepreneurs are not homogeneous, but fall into three distinct categories, each with its own demographic profile, extent of previous business experience, capacity, needs, access to resources (credit, premises) as well as orientation towards growth. The first category is labelled the ‘Jua Kali’ micro-enterpriser. These women own their business, which is often not registered and is in the informal economy. They have little education (less than secondary level) and are constrained by lack of entrepren eurial and business know-how, access to credit, and awareness of markets and market opportunities. They are most likely to employ a few family members, operate from a home-based shed (or jua kali – a Swahili term for ‘hot sun’, referring to the open-air working conditions) with limited potential for growth. To obtain credit, they are likely to be part of a women’s ‘merry-go-round’, a group of five or six women who combine their savings over a six-month period of time and then start lending, on a very short-term basis, to members from the pool. For communication needs they are likely to rely on word of mouth and a mobile phone using the cheapest tariff available (Wanjira Munyua and Mureithi 2008).

The second category comprises women with very small (usually six to ten employees) businesses, who have minimum education (to secondary level), with previous experience as an employee in a public or private sector enterprise. These businesses would be registered and operate from legitimate business premises. These women are likely to have access to some level of training and micro-finance to advance their business, but are still constrained by access to financing. Commercial banks in Kenya still prefer to lend to large depositors, and these women are unlikely to have title deeds to meet collateral security requirements. They probably own a mobile phone and use it to manage the business. This category of businesswoman would have growth potential and perhaps even access to international markets.

The third category is made up of women who may have some level of university education; they may also come from an entrepreneurial family with experience in managerial positions. They are likely to have small, medium-sized or larger enterprises with growth potential and an opportunity to engage in export. They would keep a mobile phone as well as a fixed line to conduct business and would also most probably own and use a computer and the Internet.

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