The role of social enterprise in
supporting women’s empowerment© British Council 2017/ G086
The British Council is the United Kingdom’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
Find out more about our work to empower women
and girls, support the growth of social enterprise,
and foster a more inclusive, sustainable and
prosperous world.
www.britishcouncil.org/society
Follow our social enterprise programme on Twitter:
@SocEntGlobal
1
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and
educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between
the people of the UK and other countries. We do this by making a positive contribution
to the UK and the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities,
building connections and engendering trust.
Equality and diversity are an important part of
our work and we have adopted a strategy of
embedding them in everything we do through our
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy. In addition,
we deliver programmes in many countries, which
support our priority of progressing gender
equality and the empowerment of women
and girls. A key part of our role is to support
knowledge exchange and dialogue between
the UK and other countries as well as working
in partnership to address gender inequality and
support the empowerment of women and girls.
We also deliver a Global Social Enterprise
programme that draws on UK experience
and expertise to promote inclusive economic
systems and help address entrenched social
and environmental problems in our communities
and societies.
Working across 29 countries with local and
international partners, we provide capacity
building for social entrepreneurs, promote social
enterprise education in schools and universities,
and manage international development projects
that foster the growth of social enterprise. We also
convene policy dialogues, organise study tours
and publish reports to share knowledge and best
practice in scaling the social economy.
Our previous publications include:
•	 a Vision of Social Enterprise in Europe
2020 which considers the evolution of social
enterprise into the mainstream economy
•	 Think Global Trade Social which examines the
role of social business in achieving progress on
the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
•	 surveys providing crucial evidence about social
enterprise in countries such as Pakistan, Ghana
and Myanmar
More information about our work in both social
enterprise and women’s empowerment can be
found at: www.britishcouncil.org/society
British Council
Contents
32
About the Authors
This research was led by Mark Richardson
from Social Impact Consulting. The global
team consisted of Bally Sappal from Social
Impact Consulting and Josephine Tsui from
ODI. The research was conceived and managed
by Paula Woodman, British Council.
The research in each of the countries
was supported by:
Brazil Anette Kaminski NESsT
North India Isabel Salovaara
Vaidik Dalal
Jeremy Wade
Jindal Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Jindal Global Business School
Jindal Centre for Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship
South India Prof G Arun Kumar
James Rajanayagam
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Pakistan Dr Vaqar Ahmed
Ahad Nazir
Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI)
Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI)
USA Scott Cole
Kila Englebrook
Social Enterprise Alliance (Twin Cities)
Social Enterprise Alliance
Contents
Acknowledgments
The British Council and authors would like to
thank all the people who took part in the surveys,
focus groups, dialogue events and interviews,
providing such rich information for this report.
We would also like to thank Gillian Cowell, Adam
Pillsbury from the British Council, Richard
Catherall from Katarsis Ventures, and Servane
Mouazan from Ogunte for their ongoing advice
and feedback; SEUK and PIPE Social for sharing
their data so generously; Acumen and Thomson
Reuters Foundation for their input and support;
and the national British Council teams in each of
the five countries, in particular Ana Besa in Brazil,
Zeenia Faraz in Pakistan, Sameer Chaturvedi in
India, Lena Milosevic in the UK, and Gina Del Tito
in the US. 
Photo credits
Except where otherwise indicated, all photos
in this report are © British Council.
Infographics4
Foreword8
1	 Executive Summary 10
2	Introduction 18
3	 Social enterprise as a tool for women’s empowerment organisations 23
4	 The impact of individual social enterprises on their beneficiaries 29
5	 Women as social entrepreneurs 36
6	 Women as social enterprise leaders 45
7	 The impact of the social enterprise sector as an employer 47
8	 Conclusions and recommendations 52
9	References 55
...in politics, where only
23 per cent of members
of parliaments are women
50%75%
...in work, where only 50 per cent of women are in
the labour force compared to 75 per cent of men
77% 23%
...in entrepreneurship, where there are only ten countries
in the world where as many women start businesses as men
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
FOUNDER
...in society, where one in three women
experiences physical or sexual violence
...in business, where just 7
per cent of FTSE 100 and
four per cent of Fortune 500
companies are led by women
FORTUNE 500
96% 4%
7%
FTSE 100
93%
...in pay, where, on average,
women earn 24 per cent
less than men
-24%
...in politics, where only
23 per cent of members
of parliaments are women
50%75%
...in work, where only 50 per cent of women are in
the labour force compared to 75 per cent of men
77% 23%
...in entrepreneurship, where there are only ten countries
in the world where as many women start businesses as men
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
FOUNDER
...in society, where one in three women
experiences physical or sexual violence
...in business, where just 7
per cent of FTSE 100 and
four per cent of Fortune 500
companies are led by women
FORTUNE 500
96% 4%
7%
FTSE 100
93%
...in pay, where, on average,
women earn 24 per cent
less than men
-24%
...in politics, where only
23 per cent of members
of parliaments are women
50%75%
...in work, where only 50 per cent of women are in
the labour force compared to 75 per cent of men
77% 23%
...in entrepreneurship, where there are only ten countries
in the world where as many women start businesses as men
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
FOUNDER
...in society, where one in three women
experiences physical or sexual violence
...in business, where just 7
per cent of FTSE 100 and
four per cent of Fortune 500
companies are led by women
FORTUNE 500
96% 4%
7%
FTSE 100
93%
...in pay, where, on average,
women earn 24 per cent
less than men
-24%
54
Gender inequality exists...
Less than five per cent of OECD members’ aid budgets
go towards projects that explicitly target gender equality
and women’s empowerment, and of this only 0.5 per cent
goes to women’s rights organisations. The median income
of women’s rights organisations is just $20,000.
Organisations fighting gender inequality are
under-funded – particularly at the grass roots
Social enterprise is an under-utilised
source of funding for gender equality
Globally, only 29 per cent of
women’s rights organisations
use income generation activities.
Many lack the knowledge, skills,
assets and resources to take
Globally, only 29 per cent of
women’s rights organisations
use income generation activities.
Many lack the knowledge, skills,
assets and resources to take
advantage of social enterprise.
Social enterprise both challenges
and reflects gender inequalities
in wider society. Governments,
funders, social enterprises and
women’s organisations need to
work together to realise the
potential of social enterprise
UN’S SUSTAINABLE
GOAL 5:“ACHIEVE GENDER EQUALITY
ALL WOMEN AND GIRLS”
DEVELOPMENT
AND EMPOWER Social enterprise both challenges
and reflects gender inequalities
in wider society. Governments,
funders, social enterprises and
women’s organisations need to
work together to realise the
potential of social enterprise
UN’S SUSTAINABLE
GOAL 5:“ACHIEVE GENDER EQUALITY
ALL WOMEN AND GIRLS”
DEVELOPMENT
AND EMPOWER
6 7
Even when not explicitly focussed on
women’s empowerment the social enterprise
sector is providing greater opportunities
in employment than the wider economy:
  Brazil India Pakistan UK USA
Women (% of total workforce) 43% 24% 22% 46% 46%
Women (% of social enterprise workforce) 55%* 25% 37% 66% 65%
* Estimated based on surveys, leadership statistics, and non-profit sector statistics
  Brazil India Pakistan UK USA
Women (% leaders in for-profit sector) 43% 9% 5% 18% 31%
Women (% leaders in social enterprise) 25% 24% 20% 40% 55%
And more opportunities for Women’s
leadership than the for-profit sector:
46% OF WOMEN
SAID THEY ENCOUNTERED
BARRIERS IN RUNNING
THEIR SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
BECAUSE OF THEIR
GENDER
DATA FROM THE UK
SUGGESTS THE
PAY GAPBETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN
IN SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
IS 24%
THE SAME AS THE
GLOBAL AVERAGE
WOMEN ARE
UNDER-REPRESENTED
IN LEADERSHIP
OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
IN4/5
AND THIS IS WORSE
THE LARGER
THE ORGANISATION
COUNTRIES STUDIED
BUT, in the five countries considered for this
research, the social enterprise sector still has a
long way to go before it can claim gender equality
75% 56%64%
And women starting a social enterprise is
itself contributing to women’s empowerment:
THERE ARE AN ESTIMATED
210 Million
social entrepreneurs,
ALL DEVELOPING AND TRYING
DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL
CHALLENGES
SOLVE THE WORLD’S
GLOBALLY IN THE UK 4%
OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISES
IN INDIATHIS FIGURE IS 33%
FOCUS ON WOMEN’S
EMPOWERMENT
Social entrepreneurs are the R&D
lab for women’s empowerment
Social enterprise both challenges and reflects gender
inequalities in wider society. Governments, funders,
social enterprises and women’s organisations need to
work together to realise the
potential of social enterprise
UN’S SUSTAINABLE
GOAL 5:“ACHIEVE GENDER EQUALITY
ALL WOMEN AND GIRLS”
DEVELOPMENT
AND EMPOWER
9
Foreword
Gender inequality continues to be a significant issue worldwide. If we are to meet
our UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 to ‘achieve gender equality and empower
all women and girls,’ we must both increase resources for existing activities and
understand the potential application of new approaches.
Social enterprise is, in essence, a concept of
business that takes social good as an equal
priority to profit-making and seeks to bring
about a ‘fairer economy’. So it is fitting to ask to
what extent can social enterprise enable a fairer
economy for women and girls’ empowerment
Social enterprise is not a panacea and its
application to the issue of gender equality
should not be seen in isolation from other
measures. However there are some promising
signs that social enterprise can make a
meaningful contribution.
For example there is evidence of social
enterprises breaking down the dichotomy
between ‘the empowerer’ and ‘the empowered’.
If traditional interventions focus on women as
beneficiaries, social enterprise can empower
women as customers, employees or business
owners with a genuine stake in the future. This
is a welcomed addition to more traditional
programmes as it contributes to new levels of
‘agency’ and trust. Indeed greater gender balance
in decision-making has been consistently shown
to produce more innovation, transparency, and
attention to risk than is produced by the male
dominated leadership of many established
institutions. It also builds confidence among
women and provides crucial new role models
for the next generation.
Recommendations to ensure this opportunity is
fully realised could produce significant benefits.
We need to ensure not only that women’s
empowerment agendas are mainstreamed
in existing programmes to support social
entrepreneurs, but also that new programmes
are created to develop social entrepreneurial
solutions to women’s empowerment issues.
For cash-strapped women’s organisations, social
enterprise is already a source of additional and
crucially unrestricted income, this report finds.
Twenty-nine per cent of women’s organisations
engage in their own income generating activities,
but the median income of women’s rights
organisations across the world is just $20,000.
With women’s empowerment remaining a
significantly underfunded issue, social enterprise
is a promising but under-utilised source of funding
for gender equality. Surely, this is an opportunity
which much be capitalised on if we are at all
committed to achieving our global targets.
But the life of a social enterprise is not simple.
Balancing the need to operate a successful
business in competitive markets while delivering
to a social or environmental imperative requires
real business acumen. For example, social impact
investors may be willing to accept fewer financial
dividends for the assurance that the investment
will benefit others, but their standards for the
social mission may also be unrealistically high,
given the realities of the complex, often structural,
inequities being confronted.
In the context of these real structural inequalities,
it is perhaps unsurprising to find that social
enterprise reflects many of the same issues we
find in other areas of the economy. For example
the report finds that social enterprises in all
five countries, including the US and the UK, are
clustered in gender stereotyped industries that
attract women largely because they are culturally
acceptable. For instance, women in Pakistan
and India, in order to stay within the cultural
confines of gender, choose enterprises that
provide “feminine” services, such as education
for children, or produce “feminine” products,
such as handicrafts. Similarly, women in the US
and UK are clustered in teaching, care industries,
fashion, and gifts. Uncompensated domestic
labour is the number one barrier to women’s
economic participation everywhere. Women
suffer a remarkably similar set of constraints,
each of which crosses countries as well as
sectors. Thus, the underlying problem here is
structural inequality and we probably should not
be surprised to see these findings in the data.
The report makes a number of recommendations
which the social enterprise sector must act upon
to live up to its mandate of enabling a fairer
economy. The report finds that social enterprise
produces a pattern of disadvantage for women
that is only slightly better than that found in forprofit
enterprises. Women are paid less, clustered
in low-paying and gender-stereotyped industries,
and present in ever-declining numbers from the
bottom of the organization to its top. They are
also less able to get funding outside their own
intimate social circle, whether that is from
invested capital or government grants. Women
command less attention from governments and
NGOs in social entrepreneurship, just as they
struggle for attention throughout the private
sector, from enterprise and employment to
investment and leadership.
Finally, though the rhetoric of the women’s
economic empowerment movement shies away
from the question of justice, closing the gender
gap is a goal we should all be working to achieve.
This report has shown that social enterprise holds
great potential as a tool for enabling women’s
empowerment. I for one hope that this potential
will be fully realised.
Linda Scott
Emeritus Professor of Entrepreneurship
and Innovation, University of Oxford
Founder, DoubleXEconomy and The Power Shift
Forum for Women in the World Economy
Linda is Emeritus DP World Professor for
Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Saïd
Business School, University of Oxford. She is
best known for her creation of the concept of
the DoubleXEconomy – a perspective which
describes the global economy of women in both
the developed and developing world. Linda and
her colleagues at Oxford did some of the earliest,
path-breaking research in women’s economic
empowerment.
Today, she works with many large organizations,
public and private, to design and assess women’s
empowerment programs in many domains. She
has twice been chosen as one of the top 25 Global
Thinkers in Prospect magazine’s annual list.
She writes a blog called DoubleXEconomy
and her twitter handle is @ProfLindaScott.
8
10 11
The report looks at the specific connection
between social enterprise and women’s
empowerment across five countries: Brazil, India,
Pakistan, the UK and the USA. It explores the
strengths and weaknesses of social enterprise
as a mechanism for empowering women and
considers different ways it is being used for
this end. It also examines the idea that social
enterprise as a business model might advance
women’s empowerment even when that is not
a specific objective.
We found social enterprises being used
specifically to support women’s empowerment
in four powerful ways:
•	 as a source of funding for women’s rights;
•	 as a means to deliver training or employment
opportunities for women;
•	 as a way to create economic empowerment for
women through micro-entrepreneurship; and
•	 to provide affordable products and services
for women.
We also found evidence that the social enterprise
sector is contributing to women’s empowerment
in its impact on women social entrepreneurs,
on women leaders, and on women employees.
Each of the five countries is very different in terms
of the strength, age and ecosystem of its social
enterprise sector. Each also differs in terms of the
challenges facing women and girls. Despite the
differences, there are some common themes that
emerge. We explore these themes and, based
on our research, make recommendations to
governments, funders and investors, the social
enterprise sector, and women’s empowerment
organisations, on ways to make better use
of social enterprise as a model to address
women’s empowerment and mechanism
to improve gender equality.
1.2 Methodology
The research was conducted through
partnerships with organisations across the
five countries, bringing together experts in
social enterprise and women’s empowerment.
The methodology used a four-stage process:
1.	 In order to identify the key research
questions the team conducted an extensive
literature review and a series of key informant
interviews.
2.	 A questionnaire consisting of qualitative
and quantitative questions was sent to
social enterprises across the five countries,
gathering 1140 responses.
3.	 The data was analysed and initial findings
were shared with practitioners and experts
in women’s empowerment and social
enterprise through a series of focus groups
and structured dialogues. These facilitated
discussions, held in each country, helped
to interpret, correct and clarify the findings
from the survey.
4.	 Further desk research and key informant
interviews were then conducted to fill
remaining gaps in the research to produce
the final series of reports.
1.3 Social enterprise as a model
for women’s empowerment
organisations
Women’s rights are under-funded globally.
Women’s organisations are increasingly using
social enterprise as a means of funding their work.
Nearly one third of women’s rights organisations
now list income generation as their main source
of income. And that proportion has the potential
to be higher as a lack of business knowledge
and skills may be preventing more women’s
organisations from developing sustainable
income streams.
Our research identified women’s organisations
using social enterprise as a model to develop
skills, provide employment, facilitate the economic
empowerment of women, and deliver affordable
products and services. The social enterprise
model is not in competition with other approaches
to women’s empowerment. It should be seen
as complimentary.
1.1 Introduction
Globally, women and girls are at greater risk
of poverty, violence and abuse than men. They
are more likely to be malnourished and less
likely to be educated. They are less likely to
run businesses or be in positions of leadership;
and on average they earn 75 per cent less than
men. The UN’s Sustainable Goal (SDG) 5 is to
‘achieve gender equality and empower all women
and girls.’ There is a lot of work to be done to
achieve this by the target date of 2030.
So far, social enterprise has played a small but
significant role in women’s empowerment on
a global scale. This research shows it has the
potential to play a much greater one.
We know that the world’s economy is not
sustainable, fair or inclusive. Social enterprise
challenges this status quo, putting people before
profits. We also know that the word’s economy is
particularly unfair to women. This report sets out
to establish how well social enterprise addresses
gender inequality and women’s empowerment
in particular.
For this report, we took an inclusive approach
to the concept of social enterprise. Definitions
and language vary from country to country,
so as well as considering organisations identifying
as social enterprises, we also looked more broadly
to include individuals or organisations taking
a social enterprise approach – combining trading
income with a social or environmental purpose.
1 Executive Summary
12 13
These social enterprises tend not to be
well networked nationally or internationally.
There is an opportunity for greater collaboration,
the sharing of best practice and the replication
of successful models.
1.5 Women as social
entrepreneurs
Fewer women than men set up social enterprises,
although the gap may be slightly narrower than
in the for-profit sector.
Our research suggests women social
entrepreneurs are likely to earn less than
their male counterparts and their for-profit
counterparts, and are unlikely to move into the
for-profit sector. This restricts women’s economic
empowerment. It also restricts the spread of
social enterprise values into the wider business
environment.
Women social entrepreneurs are not primarily
driven by earning an income, however. For almost
all women surveyed, their primary motivation
in setting up a social enterprise is to address
a social or environmental concern, or to benefit
their community.
Twenty-five per cent of women also list flexible
working around family commitments as an
important motivation.
Women and men face most of the same barriers
when starting and running social enterprises.
As with for-profit entrepreneurship however,
women social entrepreneurs do encounter some
additional barriers. Among the most common
listed by research participants were:
•	 greater demands on time through home and
family commitments
•	 less access to finance
•	 less confidence in skills and ability
•	 greater fear of failure
•	 fewer female role models
•	 varying social, cultural and familial pressures
on women
•	 prejudice and discrimination
In all five countries we found women social
entrepreneurs from different backgrounds
and with different levels of education. There
is no single ‘type’ of woman setting up formal
social enterprises, although most are educated
to degree level and the majority in Brazil, India
and Pakistan are from comfortable economic
backgrounds.
Women from poorer backgrounds and with lower
levels of education are often involved in informal
social entrepreneurship at a community level
(‘micro-social-entrepreneurship’). These informal
community initiatives can have considerable
social impact, but very few become formal NGOs
or social enterprises. The women organising them
tend to do so on an unremunerated, voluntary
basis. Appropriate business support and funding
for these women could enable some of them to
develop formal social enterprises and potentially
earn an income from their work.
Other poorer women become involved in social
enterprise through ‘self-help groups’ and other
empowerment initiatives, usually instigated
by NGOs.
Becoming a social entrepreneur has both
positive and negative effects on women. On the
whole, male and female social entrepreneurs
in our survey experienced broadly the same
impact, and the positive impact appears
to be considerably greater:
•	 75 per cent said starting a social enterprise
had given them an increased sense
of self‑worth;
•	 56 per cent said it had made them more able
to make their own choices; and
•	 64 per cent reported increased confidence.
The main negative impact reported was around
an increase in financial insecurity and stress.
Participants in our research identified distinct
advantages and disadvantages of a social
enterprise approach to women’s empowerment.
Advantages include:
•	 Agility and flexibility: social enterprises tend
to be small and able to respond quickly to the
particular needs of their beneficiaries.
•	 Sustainability and continuity: by generating
their own income, social enterprises are not
affected by changing priorities of funders
or politicians.
•	 A more equal power balance between
‘the empowerer’ and ‘the empowered’:
beneficiaries often contribute to the income
of the organisation.
•	 Direct economic empowerment for women:
many social enterprises give women the
opportunity to earn an income.
The two main disadvantages discussed were
market constraints and a lack of understanding
and infrastructure, particularly in Brazil
and Pakistan.
1.4 The impact of social
enterprises on their
beneficiaries
Social enterprises supporting women’s
empowerment are not just being set up by
traditional women’s rights organisations. Many
have been started independently. Thirty-three per
cent of social enterprises in India list empowering
women among their objectives, for example.
And many more empower women and girls
through their work with mixed-gender groups
such as young people, illiterate adults, or poor,
rural communities.
These social enterprises cover a vast range of
activities and impact that is remarkably consistent
across the five, very diverse countries.
‘How does your social enterprise help empower women and girls?’
0
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Providing
education
UK
Counselling/
support/
advice
Providing
healthcare
Developing
skills
Creating
jobs
Campaigning Giving women
a voice
in their
community
Affordable
childcare
Tackling
human
trafficking
Tackling
violence
Other
Brazil
USA
India
Pakistan
Average
14 15
Forty-one per cent of social enterprises said that
if they didn’t employ them, their staff would be
either unemployed or working elsewhere for less
money in worse conditions.
But, for those in leadership and management
positions, pay in the social enterprise sector is
often lower than in other sectors. Also, as in the
wider economy, there is a substantial gender pay
gap with men earning more than women. Evidence
suggests the pay gap in social enterprise is at
least as high as in other sectors. Part of the
reason for the pay gap is gender segregation.
The social enterprise sector generally conforms
to the same gender segregation as the wider
economy in each country, with women overrepresented
in care, education and catering, and
under-represented in manufacturing and tech, for
example. One reason the social enterprise sector
has a high proportion of women staff is there are
more social enterprises in sectors dominated by
women. And since society undervalues social care
work, these jobs tend to be lower paid than those
in more male dominated sectors.
There are however some striking examples
of social enterprises addressing this gender
segregation by training and employing women
in non-traditional industries such as construction
and IT. There need to be many more social
enterprises taking this approach to make
a significant impact on gender segregation.
1.8 Conclusion
Social enterprise is playing a growing role
in women’s empowerment through its impact
on beneficiaries, entrepreneurs, employees
and social norms. There is the potential for
it to achieve more.
It is of growing importance to traditional women’s
rights organisations, but it is not yet being used
as widely or as effectively as it could be to fund
or deliver this vital work.
The research uncovered many well-regarded,
independent social enterprises working in the
area of women’s empowerment. On the whole,
these are not well known or well networked.
There is considerable opportunity for
sharing best practice and replicating
successful business models and approaches.
This would help increase the number and
effectiveness of social enterprises with a focus
on women’s empowerment.
Women social entrepreneurs are an under‑utilised
resource. Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor
(GEM) statistics, if women were starting up social
enterprises at the same rate as men we could
see an additional 12 million women social
entrepreneurs across Brazil, India, Pakistan,
the UK and the USA alone1
.
There are already many women social
entrepreneurs in all five countries creating
considerable social impact. Giving them greater
recognition could inspire even more women
to start social enterprises. A lack of female role
models in social enterprise is one of the barriers
facing women social entrepreneurs, particularly
in Brazil, India and Pakistan.
There are other barriers facing women
social entrepreneurs, and governments and
intermediaries should look seriously at addressing
them. When less than three per cent of the global
population is involved in social entrepreneurship,
yet the need for social impact is so high, can we
really afford for women to start social enterprises
at a fifth the rate of men (as in Pakistan and Brazil)?
The social enterprise sector should be proud
of its record of producing women leaders, but
certainly not complacent. More work needs to be
done to support women leaders in the sector, and
more work needs to be done with larger social
enterprises to make sure they consider their
board, leadership teams and pay structures with
a gender lens. A sector that exists to create a
more equal world should not have a glass ceiling
or a gender pay gap.
Our research in Brazil, India, Pakistan, the UK
and the USA has shown that social enterprise
is already empowering women and girls across
the world. A combined effort from governments,
funders, women’s empowerment organisations
and the social enterprise sector itself is needed
to help maximise this impact on gender equality.
And if SDG 5 is to be reached by 2030, this effort
needs to start immediately.
1.6 Women as social
enterprise leaders
With the exception of Brazil, women are certainly
leading social enterprises in much higher
numbers than for-profits.
While social enterprise seems to offer better
opportunities for female leaders than the for-profit
sector, we still see a worrying trend across all five
countries: the larger the organisation the less
likely it is to be led by a woman. This mirrors the
gender imbalance in the private and NGO sectors
as well. The representation of women at board
level also drops as the size of social enterprise
increases. This situation needs to be tackled
on a national level by governments, but can also
be addressed by the sector itself, particularly
by funders and investors.
As well as being under-represented, women
social enterprise leaders face additional barriers
compared to men. Forty-six per cent of women
in our survey think their gender has an impact
on the barriers they face in running their social
enterprise. This rises to 62 per cent in Brazil.
1.7 The impact of the
social enterprise sector
as an employer
The social enterprise sector employs
proportionally more women than the workforce
as a whole, and more than the private sector
in each country. Furthermore, many of the
women employed by social enterprises are
from particularly disadvantaged backgrounds
(e.g. through poverty or abuse).
Women (% of all leaders)
  UK India Pakistan USA Brazil
Social Enterprise 40% 24% 20% 55% 25%
For-profit 18% 9% 5% 31% 43%
Brazil India Pakistan UK USA
Female (% of total workforce) 43% 24% 22% 46% 46%
Female (% of soc ent workforce – FT) 50%
(est)
25% FT
(65% PT) 37% 66%
65%
(est)
Est = estimate. FT = Full Time. PT = Part Time.
16 17
12.	Set specific targets for a portfolio that
is balanced for gender and race to reflect
the country’s population.
13.	Record and publish data on the level
of investment into male and female-led
social enterprises, the gender composition
of leadership teams and boards, and the
impact of those investments.
14.	Set criteria for social enterprises to meet
before receiving a grant or investment
including:
a.	 have gender-balanced boards
b.	 record and measure their social and
environmental impact, and include gender
equality as a metric.
15.	Increase the supply of funding and social
investment into social enterprises focussing
on gender, especially where these are
also in sectors considered ‘non-traditional’
for women.
1.9.5 Governments
16.	Governments should look to facilitate
the above recommendations to women’s
organisations, social enterprise intermediaries,
and funders and investors, by supporting
through policies, convening, finance, and
(where appropriate) legislation.
17.	Governments should bear in mind that any
policies to support women into work will
actively support the social enterprise sector,
which has a disproportionately high female
workforce.
18.	Governments should prioritise eliminating
the gender imbalance between caring
responsibilities through legislation and
financial support for shared parental leave
and affordable childcare. The social enterprise
sector should also look to address these two
issues, equalising parental leave policies
and encouraging the provision of affordable
childcare.
19.	Governments and social enterprises should
work in partnership to increase the use of
social entrepreneurship education in schools,
including a specific focus on addressing
gender inequality.
1.9 Recommendations
Each of the five countries is completely different
in the challenges facing women and girls;
the scale and needs of the social enterprise
sector; the capacity and practices of funders
and investors; and in government policies and
legislation. As a result, most of the specific
recommendations arising from this research are
contained within the individual country reports.
There are, however, recommendations that can
be shared across all five countries. Although
categorised by stakeholder many of these
recommendations could apply to more than
one stakeholder.
1.9.2 Women’s empowerment
organisations
1.	 Increase the use of social enterprise among
women’s empowerment organisations by
providing specific packages of training,
support, investment and mentoring. This
should particularly focus on creating a more
resilient and financially independent women’s
sector.
1.9.3 Social enterprises
and intermediaries
2.	 Increase the number of social enterprises
that focus on women’s empowerment through
campaigns, accelerator programmes,
competitions and funding that specifically
encourage gender-focussed ventures.
3.	 Facilitate networking between genderfocussed
social enterprises and women’s
organisations nationally and internationally
with a view to sharing best practice and
replicating successful models. Ideally, this
should be coupled with kick-starter funding.
4.	 Increase the rate of start-up and scale
amongst women-led social enterprises
through targeted support packages,
accelerators, greater exposure to female role
models, and targeted financial assistance,
particularly in Brazil, India and Pakistan.
These programmes should be flexible and
include childcare. If women were starting
social enterprises at the same rate as men
there would be over 50 per cent more social
enterprises in these countries. And if womenled
social enterprises were to scale at
the same rate as ones led by men this
would create disproportionately more
jobs for women.
5.	 Social enterprises should provide more
opportunities for under-employed women,
creating flexible, part-time jobs. Globally,
women are under-employed compared to men,
and women put 90 per cent of their income
back into their family, while men put in less
than 40 per cent. Employing women therefore
has a greater social impact on the health and
opportunities of whole families compared to
employing men. Flexible working is essential to
supporting more women into paid work.
6.	 Provide specific social enterprise accelerator
programmes in poor communities
where there are high rates of informal
‘micro‑social‑entrepreneurship’ with a view
to supporting women to set up formal NGOs
or social enterprises.
7.	 Increase the number of female social
enterprise leaders through mentoring,
targeted leadership programmes, and
facilitated peer-support. This should include
both founders / leaders and board members.
8.	 Integrate gender equality into social enterprise
business models, with a particular focus
on gender balance on boards. Encourage
recruitment to skills rather than experience of
scale to prevent perpetuating the imbalance
of men leading larger organisations. Research
by Acumen suggests that integrating gender
equality has the potential to make social
enterprises more resilient, successful and
impactful. These findings should be publicised
more widely within the social enterprise sector.
9.	 Research, understand and publicise the
gender wage-gap in social enterprise.
1.9.4 Funders and investors
10.	Learn the lessons of the Young Foundation’s
report, The Sky’s the Limit;2
use a ‘gender
lens’ when making investment decisions;
understand the additional barriers faced
by women social entrepreneurs, and the
strengths of women-led social enterprises.
11.	Ensure a gender balance in panels making
lending and investment decisions.
18 19
2 Introduction
‘Gender equality is a core development objective in its own right. It is also smart
economics. Greater gender equality can enhance productivity, improve development
outcomes for the next generation, and make institutions more representative.’ –
World Bank, 20123
Globally, women and girls are at greater risk of
poverty, violence and abuse than boys and men.
They are more likely to be malnourished and less
likely to be educated4
. Women make up half the
world’s population and yet only 23 per cent of its
parliamentarians5
. On average women earn less
than 75 per cent as much as men6
and are more
likely to be unemployed7
. And yet, working women
invest 90 per cent of their income back into their
families, whereas men invest only 30-40 per cent.8
Even in developed economies like the UK or
USA, women experience an average wage gap
of over 15 per cent and are under‑represented
in business in both leadership and
management positions.
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5
is to ‘achieve gender equality and empower all
women and girls’. One hundred and ninety three
countries have signed up to this target, but there
is a long way to go before boys and girls, women
and men have the same rights and opportunities.
Over the past 15 years, some progress has been
made towards greater gender equality. The same
period has seen the spread of social enterprise as
an approach to tackling social and environmental
issues around the world. So far, social enterprise
has played a relatively minor role in women’s
empowerment, but it has the potential to play a
much greater one.
We know that the world’s economy is not
sustainable, fair or inclusive. And we know that
social enterprise challenges this status quo,
putting people before profits. We know that the
world’s economy is particularly unfair to women.
This report sets out to establish how well social
enterprise is addressing this inequality.
This report looks at the specific connection
between social enterprise and women’s
empowerment across five countries: Brazil,
India, Pakistan, the UK and the USA. It explores
the strengths and weaknesses of social
enterprise as a mechanism for empowering
women and considers different ways it is being
used for this end. It also examines the idea
that social enterprise itself might advance
women’s empowerment even when that is not
a specific objective.
We hope this research will make an
important contribution to the debate around
women’s empowerment and provide clear
recommendations to governments, funders and
intermediaries on how to increase the impact
of social enterprise in this area.
It should be stressed that social enterprise
is simply one tool in supporting women’s
empowerment. It can be extremely useful and
effective in certain contexts, as this report will
demonstrate. But it should not be seen as an
alternative to grant-funded or government-led
initiatives. During this research, many focus
groups participants in different countries were
keen to stress that social enterprise should be
seen as complimentary to, not in competition with,
other approaches to women’s empowerment.
Real gender equality can only be achieved
through a multi-faceted approach.
That said, social enterprise is contributing to
women’s empowerment in many diverse ways.
These can be grouped into five overlapping
categories, which we’ve considered in the
following sections:
Section 3 looks at social enterprise as a tool
for women’s empowerment organisations;
Section 4 examines the impact of individual
social enterprises on their beneficiaries;
Section 5 explores the impact on women who
become social entrepreneurs;
Section 6 looks at the impact of the social
enterprise sector as an employer;
Section 7 considers the relation between social
enterprise and women’s leadership; and
Section 8 compiles recommendations for
governments, funders and intermediaries.
2.1 Background
This research was commissioned by the British
Council to explore the apparent connection
between social enterprise and women’s
empowerment. It centred on five countries: Brazil,
India, Pakistan, the UK and the USA – all countries
where the British Council has a particular focus
on both these areas of work.
20 21
2.2 Methodology
The research was conducted through
partnerships with organisations across the
five countries, bringing together experts in
social enterprise and women’s empowerment.
The methodology used a four-stage process:
1.	 In order to identify the key research
questions the team conducted an extensive
literature review and a series of key informant
interviews.
2.	 A questionnaire consisting of qualitative
and quantitative questions was sent to
social enterprises across the five countries,
gathering 1140 responses.
3.	 The data was analysed and initial findings
were shared with practitioners and experts
in women’s empowerment and social
enterprise through a series of focus groups
and structured dialogues. These facilitated
discussions, held in each country, helped
to interpret, correct and clarify the findings
from the survey.
4.	 Further desk research and key informant
interviews were then conducted to fill
remaining gaps in the research to produce
the final series of reports.
2.3 Definitions
Both women’s empowerment and social
enterprise are broad topics encompassing a great
range of activities and impact. For this research,
we have used definitions which embrace this
diversity, considering organisations and actions
that may fall outside more formal understandings
of social enterprise or women’s empowerment.
This is, therefore, a deliberately wide-ranging
piece of research, which tries to capture the ‘big
picture’. There is certainly plenty of scope for
further research focussing on specific aspects
of women’s empowerment or on particular types
of social enterprise.
2.3.1 Definition of Women’s Empowerment
Definition of women’s empowerment: Women’s
empowerment has five components: women’s
sense of self-worth; their right to have and
to determine choices; their right to have access
to opportunities and resources; their right
to have the power to control their own lives,
both within and outside the home; and their
ability to influence the direction of social change
to create a more just social and economic order,
nationally and internationally. (UN)
We used the UN definition of women’s
empowerment as our primary definition. We also
used the British Council’s theory of change for
women’s empowerment as a model to explore
ways in which social enterprise can empower
women and girls.
Theory of Change for Women’s Empowerment, British Council
Women and girls empowered
Gender equality
Individual
institutional
Informal
Formal
Dialogue
collaboration
and collective
action
Fairer access to
resources and
opportunities
Increased awareness
and agency of
women and girls
(individual power)
Supporting legal
and policy
environment
Changes in attitudes,
beleiefs, practices
and discriminatory
social norms
22 23
2.3.2 Definition of Social Enterprise
The understanding of ‘social enterprise’ varies
from country to country, as do the names used
to describe social enterprises. It is also a concept
with famously fuzzy edges: there are grey areas,
for example, between social enterprises and
charities or NGOs at one end of the spectrum,
and between social enterprises and socially
conscious businesses at the other.
NESsT, our partners in Brazil, define social
enterprise as ’a business created to further a social
purpose in a financially sustainable way.’
According to Social Enterprise UK, social
enterprises should:
•	 have a clear social and/or environmental
mission set out in their governing documents
•	 generate the majority of their income through
trade
•	 reinvest the majority of their profits
•	 be autonomous of state
•	 be majority controlled in the interests of the
social mission
•	 be accountable and transparent
For this report, we took an inclusive approach
to the concept of social enterprise. As well as
considering organisations identifying as social
enterprises, we also looked more broadly.
We included categories of activity that may
not always fit within the strict definitions
outlined above but that are within the spirit
of the definition.
This includes:
•	 impact businesses
•	 social investment activity
•	 NGOs / non-profits with an enterprise
approach, generating more than 25 per cent
of their income through trade
•	 trading ‘projects’ hosted by NGOs
•	 individuals engaging in social-enterprise-type
activity (micro-social-entrepreneurship)
•	 socially focussed businesses in private
ownership
•	 solidarity enterprises / workers’ cooperatives
•	 Fairtrade
Examples of these different types of social
enterprises are included throughout the report.
For our survey, we used two very simple criteria
to identify organisations that fitted within our
broad category of social enterprise, in common
with earlier British Council mapping exercises.
Firstly, organisations had to earn more than
25 per cent of their income through trade.
And secondly, organisations had to prioritise their
social or environmental mission above or equal
to their financial profit. Organisations relying
on more than 75 per cent grant income, or whose
stated emphasis was on profit first, were excluded
from the results.
There are many organisations around the world
focussed on empowering women and girls
through practical action, campaigning and
advocacy. The Association for Women’s Rights
in Development (AWID), is an umbrella body with
over 5,000 members across 164 countries.
Social enterprise, in its broadest sense, is not
a new approach for women’s empowerment
organisations, but its use is increasing due
to a combination of factors including a changing
funding environment, a push from donors for
financially sustainable models, and a growing
awareness of the opportunities that social
enterprise affords.
3 Social enterprise
as a tool for women’s
empowerment
organisations
© NESsT Brazil
24 25
The Society Amiga e Esportiva do Jardim
Copacabana (SAEC) is based in Brazil. It was
founded by a group of women in 1982 in an
effort to get better public services for the poor
residents of São Paulo. Today it has 22 service
agreements with the city council. It runs a
complimentary school focussing on citizenship
and offers courses to prepare young people for
the job market and literacy courses for children
and adults, among many other services14
.
3.3 Self-employment and
economic empowerment
The use of a social enterprise approach to support
women’s economic empowerment has a relatively
long history, particularly in India. Self Employed
Women’s Associations bring together women
working in the informal sector in the area
of handicraft production. And self-help groups,
often facilitated by NGOs, use microfinance
and cooperative models to encourage
micro‑entrepreneurship among women.
Many NGOs working internationally have used this
model under the banner of fair trade, providing
a market for handmade products and providing
a source of income for individual artisans,
predominantly women.
Rede Asta15
(‘Asta Network’), for example, offers
consumers fashion products made by groups of
artisans, mainly women, from low-income regions
of Brazil. Rede Asta empowers low-income women
artisans and promotes their small businesses
through training and access to market.
The fair trade model has also been applied
to commodities. In Brazil, for example, women
contribute about 70 per cent of the labour to grow
and harvest coffee and are particularly vulnerable
to the poverty created by fluctuating coffee
prices16
. Café Direct, the UK-based Fairtrade
drinks company, was founded in 1991 by Oxfam
and three fair trade ventures, to provide a fair
and sustainable income for small-scale farmers
and producers.
Some of this economic empowerment work,
pioneered by women’s organisations and other
NGOs, is now being undertaken by independent
social enterprises, as discussed in Section 4.
3.4 The advantages and
disadvantages of the social
enterprise model
Participants in our research identified four
advantages of the social enterprise model
over that of government or grant-funded,
NGO‑delivered programmes:
•	 agility and flexibility
•	 sustainability and continuity
•	 a more equal power balance
•	 direct economic empowerment
They also identified two disadvantages:
•	 market constraints
•	 lack of understanding and infrastructure
We found social enterprise being used by
traditional women’s empowerment organisations:
•	 as a source of funding for women’s rights;
•	 as a means to deliver training or employment
opportunities for women; and
•	 as a way to create economic empowerment
through micro-entrepreneurship.
3.1 Social enterprise
as a source of funding
‘One of the most profound social transformations
of the past century is the deep and broad shifts in
the status of women, and more importantly, in the
worldwide acceptance of the notion of women’s
rights and gender equality as desirable goals.
This incredible shift has occurred not by accident
but by design – through the conscious and
determined struggles of courageous women and
the movements they have built.’ – Lydia Alpízar,
Former Executive Director, The Association for
Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)
Women’s Rights Organisations have been
fundamental to changes in law, in beliefs and
in cultural norms across the world. Arguably,
they have been at the heart of much of the
progress in women’s and girls’ empowerment
in the last 50 years.
Despite this, fewer than five per cent of OECD
members’ aid budgets go towards projects that
explicitly target gender equality and women’s
empowerment, and of this only 0.5 per cent goes
to women’s rights organisations.9
The median
income of women’s rights organisations across
the world is just $20,000. Forty eight per cent
of these organisations have never received
core funding10
.
Within this context, 29 per cent of women’s
rights organisations have started to use
income‑generating strategies and 17 per
cent have never received external funding11
.
This is social enterprise as a survival strategy:
social enterprise as a means to fund work on
women’s rights that no one else is willing to fund.
Such social enterprise activity can help provide
women’s rights organisations by providing
a basic level of financial security and autonomy
over resources. However, it does not presently
account for a very large amount of their overall
income and over two thirds of women’s rights
organisations globally have yet to adopt it
as part of their strategy. It is an approach that
is under‑utilised and, where it is employed, could
be more effective.
3.2 Social enterprise delivering
training and employment
As well as campaigning, most women’s rights
organisations also run projects to empower
women directly. Here social enterprise can be
used not just to generate funds but to provide
training and employment for women too.
The social enterprise café Sheroes Hangout
in Agra, India, for example, generates funds
to support the Stop Acid Attacks campaign
and simultaneously provides skill development
and employment to acid attack survivors working
in the café12
.
The Marylebone Project, the largest provider
of accommodation and services to women
experiencing homelessness in the UK, run
several related social enterprises that provide
jobs in catering, crafts and events to women
who have experienced homelessness13
.
26 27
3.4.1 Advantages
3.4.1.1 Agility and flexibility
Available data shows that most social enterprises
are small scale and focussed on a relatively small
geographic area, which means they can be very
responsive to the needs of the women and girls
they are set up to serve. They can also change
their model to respond to changing needs.
Large‑scale programmes cannot and have to take
a more generic approach to social and economic
challenges. Programmes funded by grants are
driven, at least to some extent, by the priorities
of the funders, which often take a macro rather
than a micro-view.
3.4.1.2 Sustainability and continuity
‘Social businesses are more sustainable [than
NGOs or government programmes]. Continuity
is not dependent on continuing political support.
Social enterprises don’t disappear when
governments change.’
When they are financially sustainable, social
enterprises are not subject to short-term funding
cycles or to changes in political priorities
or leadership. This can give more autonomy
and continuity to social enterprises than is
usually the case with grant-funded programmes.
Eighty‑two per cent of the social enterprises
responding to our survey earned over 75 per
cent of their income.
3.4.1.3 A more equal power balance?
‘Social enterprises allow women to take their
destiny in their own hands’
One of the most interesting findings reported
by research participants is the difference in the
power balance between the empowerer and the
empowered between a social enterprise approach
to women’s empowerment and more traditional
government or grant-funded programmes.
In traditional grant-funded programmes, women
are beneficiaries: they gain skills, confidence,
and opportunities thanks to the generosity and
actions of others. So while particular activities
may result in women being empowered the
means of achieving this can, paradoxically,
be disempowering.
‘NGOs put forward an asymmetric relationship
with women in which women receive support, but
do not necessarily get or feel empowered. Social
enterprises offer a more symmetric relationship.’
Many international NGOs are addressing this,
increasingly trying to engage ‘beneficiaries’
in decision making, and ensuring their services
are provided in a way that it is empowering.
But the feeling among our survey participants
was that most social enterprise models do this
better than most NGOs. Women are more equal
partners. Women earn the income that sustains
the social enterprise and covers their salaries.
In the cooperatives of the solidarity economy,
women own a stake and have an equal say in the
democratic running of the business. In Fairtrade
cooperatives, access to markets enables women
to earn a sustainable income and also decide how
the Fairtrade Premium income can best be spent
to benefit their local community. At CRAM (Centro
de Referência e Atendimento a Mulher) in Brazil,
for example, women fleeing domestic violence
work to support the running costs of the refuge
but also to earn income and gain experience.
Even where women are customers, the power
balance is very different from that of provider and
beneficiary. For example where private schools
are delivering education to base of the pyramid
communities in India, Pakistan and Brazil, parents
can choose whether to send their children
depending on whether the school is providing
genuine value. The school is as dependent on its
customers as they are on the service it provides.
There is also an argument that the power balance
of ‘employer’ and ‘employee’ is not equal either.
Models that combine support for vulnerable
women with employment may, at times, be
forced to choose between prioritising financial
sustainability or the well-being of a particular
beneficiary. And microfinance models, without
accompanying business support, can leave
women in debt and less economically empowered
than before.
So, at its best, social enterprise can offer
a model of women’s empowerment in which
women are empowered by the process as well
as the outcome. At its worst, the power balance
in social enterprise can undermine women’s
empowerment.
3.4.1.4 Direct Economic Empowerment
If we take the broadest possible view of social
enterprise then economic empowerment is
the main impact. Most NGO-led programmes
do not directly empower women economically.
They may provide confidence and skills, which
lead to employment or setting up a business and
thereby indirectly empower women economically,
but few provide opportunities for women to earn
an income directly. Social enterprises do create
jobs, however. And this aspect of women’s
empowerment is considered in Section 7.
3.4.1.5 Innovation and entrepreneurship
‘Only by letting thousands and millions
of entrepreneurs to try new ideas, to innovate,
to create businesses that put those ideas
to work in a competitive and open way – only
by doing those things are we going to be able
to tackle some of the world’s big problems.’
– Angel Cabrera
Just as evolution can lead to extraordinary
solutions to the problems of survival, so social
enterprise can lead to extraordinary solutions
to social and environmental challenges.
Empowering social entrepreneurs to develop
new solutions to these challenges releases
a creative force far beyond that available within
any government or NGO. Successful approaches
survive and, with the right infrastructure, scale
and replicate. The use of social enterprise
as a research and development lab for
women’s empowerment is under-appreciated
in most countries.
3.4.2 Disadvantages
3.4.2.1 Market Constraints
‘There are causes that are not interesting
for the market, and social businesses depend
on the market.’
The constraints of the market are a limiting
factor for social enterprise in a way that they
are not for NGO or government approaches.
Government or NGO-led models use public
or philanthropic money to provide services
for women and girls who could not afford to
pay for them. Social enterprises either rely on
generating income by charging ‘beneficiaries’ for
services, or by trading activities which generate
income from other customers. Both models have
market limitations when it comes to empowering
women and girls, but these limitations are being
constantly pushed and tested by a number
of innovative social enterprises.
28 29
Over 350 million women are still living in extreme
poverty, on less than $1.90 a day17
. Clearly, such
women are severely limited in what they can
afford to buy beyond their immediate needs
of food and shelter. Despite this, research has
shown that businesses that sell services to people
living in poverty can have a significant impact
in reducing poverty.18
This is often referred to as
‘bottom of the pyramid businesses’ IDEAAS, for
example, rents solar kits to families at the bottom
of the pyramid in Brazil19
. Since such families are
typically spending $11 a month on energy already,
the solar kit rental can simply replace other
energy expenses.
Other social enterprises do not charge their
beneficiaries but instead sell products or services
to more affluent customers (individuals and
organisations). They create and fund women’s
empowerment by engaging disadvantaged
women in the process of making products or
providing a service. Crafty Women (Mulheres
Arteiras), for example, is a social enterprise
located in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, which
works with artisans from poor local communities
to help them build their skills and sell their
products. The challenge here is in finding
products or services with a sufficient market and
matching it with the skills and resources of the
women the social enterprises are supporting.
3.4.2.2 Lack of understanding, infrastructure
and legislation
A recent study by Thomson Reuters Foundation20
analysed the conditions needed to support social
entrepreneurship. They found considerable
variation across the world’s 40 largest economies.
The USA, UK and India all came in the top half
of the table, while Pakistan and Brazil were
in the bottom half with Brazil in the bottom five21
.
In Brazil it takes an average of 80 days to register
a business, compared to five in the UK and six
in the USA, for example22
. The price of setting
up a business in Brazil is over five per cent
of GNI per capita, compared to 0.1 per cent in
the UK. Where understanding, infrastructure and
appropriate legislation are not in place it can be
harder to set up a social enterprise than an NGO
or charity. However, as we have seen, funding
for women’s empowerment is often not available
and not sustainable.
3.5 Section 3 Conclusion
Women’s organisations are using social enterprise
to raise funds and empower women directly
through skills development, employment
and the creation of economic opportunities.
Although there are some limitations on
the use of social enterprise for women’s
empowerment, many of these can be overcome
through government legislation and public
education. Even market limitations need not
be insurmountable. And despite these limitations,
social enterprise is being used very effectively
as a tool to empower women and girls.
The next section looks at some examples of how
different social enterprises working in different
sectors are having an impact.
Where the impact of social enterprises
is perhaps most obvious is on their beneficiaries.
Through this research we have come across
hundreds of social enterprises set up to empower
women, sometimes explicitly and sometimes
as a sub-set of another group of beneficiaries
such as young people, or illiterate adults.
The range of areas in which these social
enterprises are delivering impact is considerable
and remarkably consistent across the five,
very diverse countries.
4 The impact
of individual social
enterprises on their
beneficiaries
30 31
The following sections give a flavour of the many
and varied ways in which social enterprises are
contributing to the empowerment of the women
and girls with which they work. We have tried
to include, among these examples, a variety
of different models of income generation as well.
4.1 Education
Many social enterprises empower women and
girls through education, either by running schools
or complimentary education programmes. Some
focus explicitly on girls; others on girls and boys.
Sudiksha
Through its BoP (Base of Pyramid) schools,
Sudiksha seeks to provide affordable options
for quality education to the residents of urban
and rural slums in India. The organisation trains
young entrepreneurs (including women) to run
the schools as self-sustaining enterprises. Parents
pay for their children’s education. Most of these
parents are low wage earners in the informal
sector including labourers, vegetable sellers,
and rickshaw drivers. Of the 18 schools Sudiksha
has set up, 12 are run by women entrepreneurs.
4.2 Counselling, support
and advice
Where social enterprises offer counselling and
advice this tends to be provided alongside their
trading activities and is often partially funded
by them.
KIM Inspire
KIM Inspire is a voluntary organisation working
with women in North Wales who are recovering
from mental ill health. They provide support
for about 300 women. They use a series of
social enterprise cafes to generate income
for the organisation to support their wider
work and, equally importantly, to provide
volunteering opportunities, work experience
and catering qualifications.
4.3 Health
Most social enterprises in the healthcare sector
do not have a gender focus, but nonetheless
provide vital, often life-saving, support for women
and girls through provision of primary healthcare,
maternity care, and so on.
Integrated Care 24 Ltd
Integrated Care 24 Ltd is a social enterprise,
which provides a variety of health and care
services to around 6 million patients in the UK.
Run by Chief Executive Yvonne Taylor, Integrated
Care 24 invest in providing exceptional care for
men and women. Their ‘mylittleone’ initiative, for
example, promotes bonding between mother and
baby when an infant is in neonatal care. The social
enterprise generates its income through service
delivery contracts with the UK Government and
other health commissioners.23
There are some social enterprises working in the
field of health that do have a very specific gender
focus however.
Aakar Social Ventures
Around 200 million women and girls in India
have a poor understanding of menstrual hygiene
and associated healthcare practices. Around 63
million adolescent miss 20 per cent of the school
year because they do not have access to sanitary
pads when they menstruate. And 31 per cent
of women in India miss an average of 2.2 days
of work per month when they menstruate.
To address this issue, Aakar Innovations
developed a machine that can produce
low‑cost, affordable sanitary pads using raw
materials and agro-waste. Aakar Social Ventures
empowers women as entrepreneurs to produce
and distribute these sanitary napkins within
their communities while simultaneously raising
awareness and sensitization of menstrual hygiene
management. Income is generated through the
sale of the sanitary pads.
© Aakar Social Ventures
‘How does your social enterprise help empower women and girls?’
0
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Providing
education
UK
Counselling/
support/
advice
Providing
healthcare
Developing
skills
Creating
jobs
Campaigning Giving women
a voice
in their
community
Affordable
childcare
Tackling
human
trafficking
Tackling
violence
Other
Brazil
USA
India
Pakistan
Average
32 33
4.4 Developing skills
Developing skills was the most common impact
listed by social enterprises in our survey in all five
countries, with 71 per cent of social enterprises
involved in this activity. This is where the social
enterprise model is most easily utilised, combining
skills training with a trading activity.
The Fashion Training and Manufacture Unit
The Fashion Training and Manufacture Unit
is a social enterprise initiative aimed at providing
skills and meaningful employment for serving
and recently released female offenders in the UK.
It fills a recognised skills gap within the London
area. It aims to train and employ up to 20 female
offenders on a regular basis within Holloway
prison and supports them on release to gain
work placements and employment within the
fashion manufacture sector in the UK. This model
combines income from the sale of products with
grant income to provide support and training.
Other social enterprises take a different approach,
charging beneficiaries for their training services,
or charging governments or other funders.
Black Girls Code
Black Girls Code, a social enterprise working
in the USA, aims to increase the number of women
in the digital space by empowering girls of colour
to become innovators in STEM fields, leaders
in their communities and builders of their own
futures through exposure to computer science
and technology.’ The social enterprise charges
a small amount for classes, although 75% of
students receive scholarships funded through
grants and sponsorship. It also relies on volunteer
input from professionals in the IT sector.
4.5 Creating jobs
Social enterprises create jobs, and many focus
on providing jobs specifically for those most
disadvantaged in the labour market, or in areas
where there is otherwise little employment.
Some focus specifically on employing women,
and overall the social enterprise sector
employs more women than the private sector,
as we discuss in Section 7.
DesiCrew
Based in India, DesiCrew provide jobs and training
in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector,
for example call centres, to bring rural youth,
including young women, into the knowledge
economy24
. Founded in 2007, they now employ
over 500 people, with operations across more
than 10 Indian states. Income is generated
through the services they provide to business.
Buksh Foundation
Operating in Pakistan since 2009, the Buksh
Foundation is a microfinance institution that
brings clean energy projects to poor and
rural areas of the country. The foundation has
trained 135 women as energy entrepreneurs and
brought solar-powered lights to 6,750 households
across the country.
MADE by DWC (Downtown Women’s Center)
MADE by DWC is a social enterprise in Los Angeles
dedicated to empowering homeless and
low-income women to overcome barriers to
employment. MADE’s product lines are created
in collaboration between participants and
community artists. Product design workshops
equip women with social and vocational skills
that help women rebuild self-esteem, discover
talents and develop skills. Employment is
provided through their e-commerce arm,
café, and gift boutique. MADE also works with
employment partners to place women in jobs,
ensuring success in retention and aims to change
perceptions of homelessness for these employers.
Rede Asta25
Rede Asta is a social enterprise that offers
consumers designed handmade products made
by groups of artisans, mainly women, from
low‑income regions of Brazil. Rede Asta empowers
low-income women artisans through training and
development, and by providing access to market.
Income is generated through the sale of products
online and through its chain of shops.
4.6 Campaigning
Twenty-one per cent of survey respondents
said that their social enterprise is involved
in some form of campaigning around women’s
empowerment.
Songs Against Slavery (SAS)
SAS uses a social enterprise approach
to fundraising. It is a non-profit that works
to empower and inspire communities to join the
fight against sex trafficking in the United States.
By running, benefit concerts around the U.S.
and partnering with musicians, Songs Against
Slavery raises awareness and funds for local
non‑profits that are directly fighting sex trafficking
in the local community.
The Fairtrade Foundation
The Fairtrade Foundation licenses the Fairtrade
Mark in the UK. The revenue it generates
through its licensing is used to fund their quality
assurance process as well as Fairtrade marketing
and campaigning activity. Some of this work
specifically focusses on the impact of Fairtrade
on women.
4.7 Giving women a voice
in their community
Social enterprise can be a particularly effective
tool in enabling women to speak and be heard
within their community. It is perhaps most
effective using some form of cooperative
model, bringing together groups of women
who, collectively, are able to speak out and
take action on issues that matter to them.
A striking example is Self-Help Groups in India
which not only create an income for women
but also catalyse social change. These are
discussed further in Section 5.4.1.
Ty Llywelyn
Based in North Wales, Ty Llywelyn was started
by a group of women who were frustrated at
the erosion of community spirit on their housing
estate. Ten years on, the social enterprise runs
a thriving youth club, café, IT training facilities
and social facilities for the elderly. They generate
income by renting office and event space and
by charging for some of the activities they run.
© Songs Against Slavery
34 35
4.8 Affordable childcare
Globally, women are responsible for the vast
majority of childcare in their families. Lack
of affordable childcare is one of the biggest
barriers preventing women from taking up paid
employment. Many social enterprises have
developed to address this problem.
Caia Park Partnership – Sparkles Nursery
Caia Park is a disadvantaged estate in Wrexham,
North Wales. Caia Park Partnership is a social
enterprise which runs a range of initiatives
to benefit the community. The Caia Park team
identified a lack of affordable childcare as
a significant barrier to women on the estate
engaging in employment or education.
In response, they set up another social enterprise,
Sparkles Nursery, which provides high-quality
affordable childcare. The Sparkles staff are all
local women, the vast majority of whom, including
the manager, joined Caia Park on employment
schemes. Through their involvement in Sparkles,
they have not just gained qualifications and a job;
they have started a career.
Childcare is a significant market in some areas and
is also used by some social enterprises to create
quality jobs for women. For example, Beyond
Care Childcare Cooperative was established
in Brooklyn in 2008 to provide good quality,
living wage jobs for women from poor, immigrant
communities. They now support 38 women.
4.9 Tackling human trafficking
Human trafficking is a global problem that
disproportionately affects women. A number
of social enterprises seek to address this problem
and support the victims of trafficking.
Odanadi
Odanadi is an NGO based in Mysore in India.
It was established to tackle sexual exploitation
and human trafficking. They have set up a
social enterprise bakery, which raises funds
and provides employment and training for
trafficking survivors.
Thistle Farms
Based in the USA, Thistle Farms is a community of
women who have survived prostitution, trafficking
and addiction. It offers a two-year residential
program that provides housing, medical care,
therapy, ​and ​education, free of charge, ​for up
to 32 women and serves hundreds more with
advocacy and referral services. Residents and
graduates are employed ​by ​one of the social
enterprises, including ​the natural body and home ​
line​, the Café at Thistle Farms, the Studios, and
Thistle Farms Global. 
​Last year over 59 survivors were employed
directly by the organization, with another 1,500
women supported through its Global partners.
Social enterprise revenue topped $2 million
last year.
4.10 Tackling gender
stereotypes
A number of social enterprises specifically set
out to empower women in fields where they are
under-represented. Black Girls Code has already
been highlighted in section 4.4.
Fearless Futures is a UK-based social enterprise
engaging people in critical thought to understand
and challenge the root causes of inequality, using
gender as “a gateway to explore connected
inequalities.” They run multi-week leadership
programmes for girls in schools, and women and
men in corporate organisations. They charge
schools and organisations for the programmes.
Any surpluses generated from their corporate
programmes are reinvested into the business
and go towards subsidising their work with young
people in schools. The main goal of Fearless
Futures’ work is to support the beginning of
powerful and transformative movements for
change within schools and organisations.
Mulher em Construção ‘Woman
in Construction’
Mulher em Construção have developed
training courses in construction for women.
They support low income women, or those
fleeing domestic violence, into jobs in Brazil’s
construction sector. And they work to tackle
gender inequality in the construction industry.
They started out as an NGO and are working with
Womanity Foundation to move towards a social
enterprise model.
4.11 Access to finance
Access to credit can open up economic
opportunities for women, and bank accounts
can be a gateway to the use of additional financial
services. However, women face significantly
greater challenges than men in gaining access
to financial services26
.
Less than 60 per cent of women globally have
access to a bank account. This figure drops
to 42 per cent in India and only three per cent
in Pakistan. In the UK and the USA, women
living in poverty are often forced into the hands
of loan‑sharks and pay-day lenders charging
exorbitant interest rates.
A number of social enterprises have started
up in the financial sector. Some of these are
linked to entrepreneurship through micro-credit
schemes. Others have a wider remit.
Mann Deshi Bank
Mann Deshi bank is India’s first rural financial
institution run by and for women. It was set
up to address the barrier to finance faced by
illiterate women in rural communities. Started
in 1997 they are now the second largest microfinance
bank in India, supporting 25,000 women
entrepreneurs a year, with a repayment rate of
98 per cent.Micro-finance initiatives also support
women entrepreneurs in Pakistan, but here,
according to the World Bank, 68 per cent of
women borrowers had to get permission from a
male relative first, and as much as 70 per cent of
micro‑loans to women in Pakistan could be going
to male relatives27
. This is another example of why
social enterprise can only be part of the solution
to women’s empowerment. Without changing legal
practices and cultural norms, social enterprise
can be limited in its impact.
4.12 Section 4 Conclusion
Section 4 gives a sense of the sheer breadth
of approaches being employed by social
enterprises across Brazil, India, Pakistan,
the UK and the USA. It demonstrates the impact
on women’s empowerment that can be achieved
using social enterprise models. And it showcases
models that could potentially be replicated
in other areas, thus extending that impact
to even more women.
© Thistle Farms © Mulher em Construção
36 37
The next section explores the impact on the
women who set up these social enterprises.
For the purpose of this research, we have
used the term ‘social entrepreneur’ to refer
specifically to someone who sets up or leads
a social enterprise, even if that venture is at
an early stage.
There are differences in the impact on women
of setting up a social enterprise from scratch and
taking over the leadership of an established social
enterprise, particularly in terms of the financial
risk and compensation.
Social enterprise is a young sector and most
women leaders of social enterprises are also
the founders, but that is not always the case,
particularly for larger or more established
social enterprises.
Most of the data on social enterprises conflates
the two experiences, however, and this needs
to be born in mind when comparing statistics
with other sectors.
In this report, we use the term micro‑socialentrepreneur
to refer to someone engaged in
delivering social benefit activities at a community
level using an informal structure and usually
without financial compensation. This broadly
equates to the concept of the micro‑entrepreneur
working in the informal economy. This type
of social enterprise activity is often carried out
by women, particularly in poorer communities
like the favelas of Brazil or in low-income, rural
communities in India and Pakistan.
Some of this activity has the potential to develop
into formal social enterprises but, as with the
for-profit economy, the transition from informal
to formal is hard. It is even harder for women.
There are a number of important findings from
this research regarding women who set up or lead
social enterprises. These can be grouped into the
following categories:
•	 the differences between
social‑entrepreneurship and for-profit
entrepreneurship
•	 drivers for women to become social
entrepreneurs
•	 barriers and enablers for women social
entrepreneurs
•	 the types of women who become social
entrepreneurs
•	 the impact on women of being a social
entrepreneur.
5.1 The differences between
social-entrepreneurship and
for-profit entrepreneurship
For-profit entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs
share some common characteristics but also
exhibit important differences. Many of the
enablers to entrepreneurship are similar to those
for social entrepreneurship: access to appropriate
business support, government policies and
legislation, finance, education, and role models.
Equally, many of the barriers are shared. Among
these are confidence in abilities, fear of failure,
and family responsibilities.
The primary drivers for social entrepreneurs
are quite different however. While many do
want to earn a reasonable income and have
flexible working around family commitments,
the overwhelming aim of almost all social
entrepreneurs is to address a social
or environmental concern or to benefit
their community.
These comparisons are important because
there is considerably more data on women
entrepreneurship than social entrepreneurship.
While recognising that the same type of
enabler might look slightly different for social
entrepreneurship (appropriate finance, business
support and legislation, for example), many of
the recommendations made to address barriers
and enablers for women entrepreneurs also
apply to women social entrepreneurs. When
governments, funders or intermediaries seek
to identify, communicate with and encourage
women social entrepreneurs, however, they
need to employ different approaches than
the ones used with for-profit entrepreneurs.
One of the primary reasons why very few (if any)
social entrepreneurs transition to become
for‑profit entrepreneurs is that the drivers for
the two types of entrepreneurship are different.
Social entrepreneurship does not act as a bridge
into the for-profit sector.
Another crucial difference between social and
for‑profit entrepreneurship is the expected
economic return for the individual. Social
entrepreneurship is likely to create higher rates
of social return for the community and society
at large. Social entrepreneurship is also likely
to create proportionally more jobs for women
(See section 7). But rates of pay in the social
enterprise sector tend to be lower than that
in any other sector. There is also a substantial
gender pay gap in the social enterprise sector.
So women social entrepreneurs are likely to earn
less than their male counterparts and less than
their for-profit counterparts and are unlikely
to move into the for-profit sector.
This means that social enterprise
delivers less economic empowerment for
women entrepreneurs than for-profit businesses,
but more economic empowerment for
women generally.
5 Women as social
entrepreneurs
38 39
5.2 Drivers for women to
become social entrepreneurs
‘Everyone has their own social mission
on this planet and I found mine.’ – survey
respondent, Brazil
As already suggested, the primary driver for
almost all social entrepreneurs, male and female,
is addressing a social or environmental concern
or benefitting their community.
There are other drivers, however, which draw
women towards social enterprise rather than
to an NGO, for example. One other factor that
may be driving rates of both social and for-profit
entrepreneurship among women is the need
to balance work with family commitments.
Across the five countries an average of 25 per
cent of women social entrepreneurs put ‘provided
flexible work around my family commitments’ as
a motivating factor for starting a social enterprise.
This was lowest in India at 17 per cent and highest
in Brazil at 31 per cent.
Social enterprise was seen as a more flexible
working option than any other sector by social
entrepreneurs in every country.
Providing an income for their families was less
of a motivating factor than flexible working
in all countries except Pakistan (30 per cent).
Social enterprise was seen to pay less than other
sectors. Women who need to provide an income
for their families are not generally becoming
social entrepreneurs themselves, but may
benefit from employment opportunities created
by social enterprises.
For male social entrepreneurs the opposite holds
true: earning an income is a more significant
motivating factor than flexible working.
This should not come as a surprise as, culturally,
in all five countries, to a greater or lesser extent,
men are considered the primary bread-winner
and women have the greater responsibility
for child and elder care. It is notable that this
difference is large however.
5.3 Barriers and enablers for
women social entrepreneurs
The most common barriers cited by women
social entrepreneurs are the same as those cited
by male social entrepreneurs. They vary from
country to country but, perhaps unsurprisingly,
if tax or government bureaucracy is a barrier
for women, it is also a barrier for men.
There are areas, however, where women
report experiencing a significant disadvantage
compared to men:
•	 greater demands on time through home
and family commitments
•	 less access to finance
•	 less confidence in skills and ability
•	 greater fear of failure
•	 fewer female role models
•	 varying social, cultural and familial pressures
on women
•	 prejudice and discrimination
Secondary motive Female Male
Flexible working 25% 14%
Earning an income 16% 24%
In India and Pakistan, women can also struggle
to secure support from their families, especially
in the initial stages of becoming a social
entrepreneur, and they face additional legal
restrictions.
However, social roles and expectations in India
and Pakistan is one area in which female social
entrepreneurs can enjoy several advantages over
their male counterparts. Unlike men, women are
not usually expected to be the primary earner
in the family. They may therefore have more
freedom to take economic risks and accept
lower pay or financial loss in their effort to start
a social enterprise. And women can more easily
engage with other women (especially in rural
settings, where separation of the genders is
more pronounced) for the purposes of bringing
them into the social enterprise as beneficiaries,
customers, employees, and/or affiliate
micro‑entrepreneurs.
In Brazil, India and Pakistan, there is also
an assumption that the social enterprise
sector is a ‘good fit’ for women. ‘Social work’
is considered an ‘appropriate’ occupation for
women. The lower pay associated with the social
sector is considered more acceptable for women
than for men. And many respondents of both
sexes believed that women have a greater
capacity for empathetic team leadership and
community outreach than men. Social enterprise
is therefore often reflecting or replicating gender
norms and the undervaluing of care rather than
directly challenging them.
This may mean that in some areas women who set
up social enterprises face less cultural resistance
than those who establish for-profit businesses.
But it can also devalue their achievements
as social entrepreneurs and therefore reduce
the respect afforded to them by their family
or community.
5.3.1 Access to finance
Access to suitable finance is a concern for social
entrepreneurs, male and female, but there
do seem to be additional barriers facing women.
This was a particular worry in Brazil, India and
Pakistan, but concerns were also raised in the
UK and USA. This finding echoes the findings of
the WeStart research where access to finance was
the found to be the biggest barrier facing women
social entrepreneurs in Europe28
.
It also mirrors one of the key barriers facing
for-profit entrepreneurs. As the EU’s report
on Women’s Entrepreneurship notes:
‘Women entrepreneurs tend to start off with less
capital, borrow less and use family rather than
debt or equity finance. Whilst such differences
do not necessarily reflect discrimination, studies
have found that many female entrepreneurs felt
the pressure of discrimination in the process
of obtaining finance.’29
5.3.1.1 Social investment
‘Women in management positions in businesses
still suffer prejudice, especially when it’s time
to attract investors.’ – StoryMax, Brazil
There is considerable evidence in the for-profit
sector that female entrepreneurs find it harder
to raise investment than their male counterparts.
Just ten per cent of global venture capital funds
between 2010 and 2015 funded start‑ups with
at least one female founder30
. Female investors
are more likely to invest in female-led businesses,
and more likely to invest in social ventures31
,
but even in the USA only 15 per cent of business
angels are women, and this is lower still
in the other countries.
40 41
There is still insufficient data to determine
whether the barriers preventing women for-profit
entrepreneurs from accessing investment also
apply to social entrepreneurs. The views among
focus group members in the UK and USA were
mixed, but in Brazil, India and Pakistan the views
were unequivocal: women-led social enterprises
are much less likely to receive social investment.
This results from a combination of institutional
factors such as gender imbalance on funding
panels; psychological factors such as reported
lower levels of confidence among women social
entrepreneurs; and social and cultural factors.
5.3.1.2 Debt
Access to debt finance from formal lenders
is also a problem. Men borrow more money than
women across the five countries studied, and men
are much more likely to borrow money to start
or expand a business than women.
Female borrowing rates as a percentage of male borrowing rates for business start-up
and growth32
Brazil India Pakistan United Kingdom United States
50.9% 52.0% 79.0% 28.6% 64.3%
The higher rates of ‘fear of failure’ reported by
female social entrepreneurs is part of this issue.
Research participants reported that girls are often
brought up to be more risk averse than boys.
A lower appetite for risk can affect both start-up
rates and willingness to borrow.
In Brazil, India and Pakistan, women tend to have
less personal capital to invest than men, and
also report that being taken seriously by lenders
and investors is a significant problem. In India,
only 42 per cent of women have a bank account.
In Pakistan, the figure is just three per cent.
5.3.1.3 Crowdfunding
Perhaps because of the barriers to other
forms of finance, women social entreneurs
are most likely to raise their investment from
family and friends and from crowdfunding.
Women are more successful at crowdfunding
than men. For example, 53 per cent of women
starting a social enterprise in Brazil were
supported by family and friends, a philanthropic
foundation, or informal sources of investment
like crowdfunding, compared with only
32 per cent of men33
.
In the UK, according to the report Women
Unbound carried out by PwC and The
Crowdfunding Centre, this bias against women
‘evaporates’ in the crowd funding space, with
campaigns launched by women more successful
than those run by men34
.
5.3.2 Prejudice and discrimination
‘I have been threatened and marginalised just
because I am a female entrepreneur.’ – survey
participant, India
Prejudice and discrimination were reported by
women in all five countries, with the lowest rates
of 12 per cent in the UK, and the highest rates
of 33 per cent in Pakistan. This was experienced
in many different ways. Such discrimination and
prejudice affects women in the for-profit sector
too, but it illustrates the additional barriers faced
by women social entrepreneurs compared to their
male counterparts.
‘In Pakistan women face many challenges just
because of her gender. There are many kinds
of misconceptions and myths about women,
especially the myth that women can’t become
a bread winner.’ – female respondent, Pakistan
‘We use football as the main tool of empowerment
and performance in our social business. In sports,
mainly football, the prejudice and discrimination
against women is considerable: not taking our
ideas seriously; not answering our requests for
meetings; and not making referrals.’ – Instituto
Esporte Mais – IEMais
‘If I were a man then it would be easy for me to
generate funds. Even within the family they think
it’s better to spend on my wedding then on my
business because they don’t know if my husband
will allow me to do so.’ – female respondent, India
‘Sometimes we feel as women we are not taken
as seriously especially in delivering or managing
products or carrying out research despite the fact
we are both graduates, have conducted research
and have over 25 years experience in social
work and community development.’ – female
respondent, USA
‘Many times in meetings, when I’m accompanied
by women members of the team, people direct
questions to me rather than them.’ – male
respondent, Brazil
‘Women in India do not generally work,
so a woman working in not-for-profit is considered
to be doing this as a part-time engagement,
not a career.’ – female respondent, India
‘We are living in an environment where females
can’t travel or even have a conversation freely.’
– female respondent, Pakistan
5.3.3 Fear of failure
‘As a woman leading a vibrant social enterprise,
I feel a huge responsibility to help create the
conditions and support mechanisms for other
female led social enterprises to also succeed.
I feel that if I were to fail, it would set a very poor
example for those women we have supported
and who will one day take up the baton.’ – female
participant USA
With the exception of Pakistan, women in all five
countries were more likely to rate ‘fear of failure’
as a perceived barrier when they were starting
their social enterprise. The gender difference was
most pronounced in the UK.
5.4 The types of women who
become social entrepreneurs
We know that, globally, social entrepreneurship
is quite rare with less than three per cent of
the population engaged. This drops to below
one per cent in Brazil. We also know social
entrepreneurship is even rarer among women.
It is especially rare compared to for-profit
entrepreneurship, which is as high as 40 per
cent in some countries.
Within our survey sample, we found women
social entrepreneurs from different backgrounds
and with different levels of education. It is clear
that there is not one ‘type’ of woman setting up
social enterprises. One common factor, with a few
notable exceptions, is that most women social
entrepreneurs tend to be well educated – a much
higher percentage than the national average were
still in education age 21.
The other common trend among the three
countries with the highest rates of poverty
– Brazil, India and Pakistan – is that here, women
social entrepreneurs tend to be from more
privileged backgrounds.
In the UK and USA, only around ten per cent
of social entrepreneurs were better off than many
in their community.
42 43
Brazil India Pakistan UK USA
Had at least a comfortable standard
of living when growing up 76% 61% 69% 54% 60%
Better off than many in their
communities 41% 21% 43% 9% 10%
Still in education at the age of 21 82%
(11%)
66%
(4.5%)
76%
(0.25%)
69%
(42%)
94%
(45%)
Caring responsibilities in the family
(child or parent) 35% 73% 60% 52% 45%
The main wage-earner in their family 6%
(20%)
33%
(14.4%)
19%
(10.9%) 47% 50%
(Figures in brackets are comparison figures for the wider economy.)
In Brazil, around six per cent of the population
live in Favelas and many more in poor
neighbourhoods with limited access to public
services. It is unsurprising then, that there
is considerable social entrepreneurship at
a community level. About 80 per cent of this
activity is led by women36
. These women lead
strong, informal networks tackling range of social
problems including women’s empowerment.
The situation is similar in both India and Pakistan
where this form of ‘social work’ is considered
more suitable for women than for men.
These informal, largely volunteer-led activities
have significant social impact. Many could
potentially generate even more impact if they
were able to formalise their activities and
generate an income for the social entrepreneur
herself. For example, in Brazil, the Society Amiga
e Esportiva do Jardim Copacabana (SAEC) has
grown from an informal protest group into a large
social enterprise with 22 service contracts with
São Paulo city council.
The vast majority of this informal social
entrepreneurship never leads to formal social
enterprises or CSOs, however. This is equally true
of micro-entrepreneurs running informal for-profit
businesses. Out of 800 micro-enterprises working
with the Brazillian Micro and Small Business
Support Service SEBRAE, only five became formal.
The main barriers preventing women formalising
their social ventures are lack of knowledge and
support, lack of access to finance, and the cultural
acceptability of women setting up and leading
formal organisations in some parts of India
and Pakistan37
.
This research suggests there is a vast pool
of under-supported female social entrepreneurs
that represents a huge opportunity for women’s
empowerment.
5.5 The impact on women
of being a social entrepreneur
Becoming a social entrepreneur has both positive
and negative effects on women. On the whole,
male and female social entrepreneurs
experience broadly the same impact, and
for both sexes the positive impact appears
to be considerably greater.
•	 75 per cent of female social entrepreneurs
responding to our survey said that starting
a social enterprise had given them an
increased sense of self-worth;
•	 56 per cent said that it had made them more
able to make their own choices; and
•	 64 per cent reported increased confidence;
These well-being outcomes were experienced
by male social entrepreneurs too, but to a lesser
extent. It seems the impact of starting a social
enterprise on women is particularly powerful.
However, the negative impact also appears
to be greater on women. Sixty-two per cent
of female social entrepreneurs reported
experiencing some negative impact
(compared with only 37 per cent of men).
The negative impact reported was around
financial insecurity and stress.
•	 37 per cent of female social entrepreneurs
responding to our survey said they had
experienced debt or financial insecurity
as a result of starting their social enterprise
(63 per cent in Brazil); and
•	 44 per cent said they had experienced stress.
These too tend to be experienced to a greater
extent by women than by men.
5.4.1 Women in self-help groups
There is another group of women entrepreneurs
engaged in social enterprise however,
particularly in Brazil, India and Pakistan.
These are less‑educated women from poor
communities. Many are involved in some form
of micro‑entrepreneurship through self-help
groups, cooperatives and fair trade initiatives.
These social enterprises engage women
in productive and income-generating activities
that also have a social purpose. If these women
are also included in our understanding of social
entrepreneurs, then many from lower‑income,
less educated, and rural backgrounds are
also participating. These groups are often
facilitated by a larger business or NGO, rather
than originating from the social entrepreneurs
themselves however.
What is striking is that an initiative that starts
out to create economic empowerment,
through the medium of the self-help groups,
becomes a channel for greater social change,
from micro‑finance to health, to access
to drinking water.
‘We sat through a group discussion in a village
in Odisha where women were talking about
precautions to be taken during pregnancy, such
as not lifting and carrying water from the village
well […] We listened as the young women in the
group discussed the resistance at home when
they tried to avoid heavy lifting tasks. Some of the
more enlightened mothers-in-law present offered
to help get the message across to their peers.
The group also enlisted men to carry the message
to other men and to persuade them to step
in and take on the water delivery task during the
time when their wives are pregnant. The strength
of the group allows a simple message to cause
social change.’35
There is also another group of poorer, less welleducated
women who are involved in what we
have termed micro-social-entrepreneurship.
5.4.2 Women micro-social-entrepreneurs
‘In favelas there are more people doing for-profit
entrepreneurship but more women interested in
social entrepreneurship. For example out of 153
volunteers in my social project, 120 are women.’
– Rio Focus Group participant
44 45
The evidence suggests that, across the five
countries, women are not starting social
enterprises in proportionally higher numbers than
starting for-profit businesses. However, a large
proportion of women for-profit entrepreneurs
never start companies. Instead they appear
to remain in the informal economy or operate
as sole traders.
When you look at leadership across the two
sectors it is quite a different picture. With the
exception of Brazil, women are certainly leading
social enterprises in much higher numbers than
for-profits.
6 Women as social
enterprise leadersIn Pakistan, the negative impact on women can
be even more serious with 24 per cent of women
social entrepreneurs reporting experiencing
violence or hostility as a result of starting their
enterprise. However even more, 38 per cent,
reported a reduction in violence or abuse as a
consequence of starting their social enterprise.
We do not have any comparison data
to assess whether the impact on women’s
wellbeing is quantifiably different for social
entrepreneurship compared with for-profit
entrepreneurship. What seems likely, however,
is that women who are driven by a need to see
social change or community benefit are less
likely to experience such an increased sense
of self-worth by starting a for-profit business.
By contrast, women who are driven more by
earning an income may experience a greater
sense of self-worth from a for-profit business.
5.6 Supporting women social
entrepreneurs
Gender GEDI categorise female for-profit
entrepreneurs into six groups38
:
•	 Privileged Entrepreneurs
•	 Die-Hard Entrepreneurs
•	 Promising Entrepreneurs
•	 Potential Entrepreneurs
•	 Reluctant Entrepreneurs
•	 Resistant Entrepreneurs
They argue that any policy initiatives to encourage
entrepreneurship should be aimed at the middle
two groups to have most impact. The top two
groups are likely to become entrepreneurs
anyway; the bottom two groups are unlikely
to do so even with interventions.
This approach would also be useful to adopt
when considering encouraging women social
entrepreneurs. Further work is needed to identify
the characteristics of these groups for social
entrepreneurs however.
5.7 Section 5 Conclusion
Women social entrepreneurs share many
characteristics with for-profit entrepreneurs.
They share many of the same barriers and
enablers. Their motivations however are quite
different, as social entrepreneurs are driven
almost entirely by a desire to create social impact.
Women are, on the whole, less likely to become
social entrepreneurs than men. Women social
entrepreneurs face the same barriers as their
male counterparts, and also additional barriers
as a result of their gender. Additional barriers are
present in all five countries but are particularly
marked in Brazil, India and Pakistan, the three
countries that score lowest of the five in both
the Gender Inequality Index39
and GEDi’s Female
Entrepreneurship Index40
.
Becoming a social entrepreneur has a positive
impact on women’s self-confidence, sense
of self‑worth and power over her own decisions.
Financially, women social entrepreneurs are likely
to earn less than their male counterparts and less
than their for-profit counterparts and are unlikely
to move into the for-profit sector. This means
that social enterprise delivers less economic
empowerment for women entrepreneurs than
for-profit businesses, but more economic
empowerment for women generally.
There is not one ‘type’ of woman who becomes
a social entrepreneur, but women who start
social enterprises across all five countries tend
to be better educated than most. The social
entrepreneurship of poorer, less-well-educated
women tends to remain informal and unpaid.
The next section looks at women’s leadership
in social enterprise, in particular in comparison
with other sectors.
© Bangor Business School
46 47
% of leaders who are women in social enterprise and for-profit sectors.
UK India Pakistan USA Brazil
Social Enterprise 40% 24% 20% 55% 25%
For-profit 18% 9% 5% 31% 43%
Does gender have an impact on the barriers you face in running your social enterprise?
Brazil India Pakistan UK USA
Female 62% 31% 50% 40% 56%
Male 9% 17% 33% 0% 50%
Leadership in the social enterprise sector more
closely mirrors the leadership in the charity or
NGO sector. A number of reasons for this were
suggested through the focus groups:
•	 less prejudice and discrimination in the social
enterprise sector than in the for-profit sector
•	 a higher proportion of small organisations
compared with the for-profit sector
•	 greater flexibility offered to women in social
enterprise
•	 leading social organisations was, in some
contexts, seen as more socially acceptable
for women
While social enterprise seems to offer better
opportunities for female leaders than the
for-profit sector, we still see a worrying
trend across all five countries: the larger
the organisation the less likely it is to be led
by a woman. This is true across private and
NGO sectors as well. And it is true when you
consider number of staff, stage of development
or size of turnover. The representation of women
at board level also drops as the size of social
enterprise increases.
This gender imbalance seems to run through
the entire social enterprise sector. For example,
women are under-represented in credit union
leadership roles around the globe with men
predominating in chief executive roles. This is
especially the case in smaller credit unions: in the
United States most female leaders serve at credit
unions smaller than $50m41
.
As well as being under-represented, female social
entrepreneurs face additional barriers compared
to men. On average 46 per cent of the women
in our survey think their gender has an impact
on the barriers they face running their social
enterprise compared to only 22 per cent of men.
And, unsurprisingly, female social entrepreneurs
report family and time pressures as major barriers
to success, while men do not.
Gender also has an impact on the way a
social enterprise is run. Social enterprises run
by women were more likely to employ more
women and to have more women on their senior
leadership teams.
The next section looks at the employment
of women in social enterprise in more detail.
7 The impact
of the social
enterprise sector
as an employer
As we have seen, many social enterprises
empower women as ‘beneficiaries’ of their
services. Social enterprises empower the women
entrepreneurs who set them up. And many social
enterprises also create jobs that empower the
women who work in them.
There are three important questions to consider
as we evaluate the impact of social enterprise
employment on women’s empowerment:
•	 Are proportionally more women employed
in social enterprise than other sectors?
•	 Are the jobs created good jobs?
•	 Do the jobs created challenge or reinforce
gender stereotypes?
48 49
Brazil India Pakistan UK USA
Female (% of total workforce)42
43% 24% 22% 46% 46%
Female (% of soc ent workforce)43
Full Time
55%
(est) 25% 37% 66%
65%
(est)
7.1 Female proportion of social
enterprise workforce
The social enterprise sector employs
proportionally more women than the workforce
as a whole, and more than the private sector
in each country.
Furthermore, many of the women employed
by social enterprises are from particularly
disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g. as a result
of poverty or abuse).
There may be a number of reasons why the social
enterprise sector employs proportionally more
women:
•	 As we have already noted, social enterprise
is seen as providing more flexible work than
other sectors, which is attractive to women.
A large number of jobs in the social enterprise
sector are part-time for example.
•	 In India and Pakistan where female
participation in the workforce is very low, social
enterprise is often seen as more culturally
acceptable. Social work is ‘woman’s work’.
•	 Many survey participants of both sexes and
across all five countries felt that women are
more drawn to work with a social benefit.
Likewise, there is greater female representation
in the NGO sector in each country.
•	 Social enterprises are over-represented
in industries in which women are
over‑represented such as care, education,
and catering.
7.2 Proportion of women
in the co-operative economy
If we look at the cooperative economy, the
evidence is less clear. Overall, cooperatives
employ over 12 million people, or roughly 0.2
per cent of the world’s population44
. There are
no reliable statistics on the percentage of women
in this global cooperative workforce, and the
evidence on the extent to which cooperatives
benefit women more than non-cooperative
businesses is mixed.
The cooperative economy does reflect the
gender imbalances of the wider economy.
In some contexts cooperatives employ a greater
proportion of women than non-cooperative
businesses. In Brazil, for example, women make
up 52 per cent of cooperative employees but
only 44 per cent of the national workforce45
.
In other countries this does not seem to be the
case. In India and Pakistan, women make up
around 47 per cent of agricultural labourers46
but only seven per cent of the members
of agricultural cooperatives47
.
7.3 Are social enterprise jobs
good jobs?
Social enterprise jobs are perhaps best spilt into
two broad categories:
•	 Jobs specifically for beneficiaries
•	 Jobs not specifically for beneficiaries
7.3.1 Jobs specifically for beneficiaries
Forty one per cent of social enterprises said that
if they did not employ them, their staff would be
either unemployed or working elsewhere for less
money in worse conditions.
As has already been noted, many social
enterprises employ disadvantaged people who
would otherwise be unlikely to find employment.
Where the alternative to employment is poverty
any job, it might be argued, is a good job.
But could the jobs created by social enterprises
be better? And are for-profit businesses creating
better jobs?
One criticism levelled against Fairtrade, for
instance, is that, while paying more than market
prices, it can still trap women in relatively low-paid
agricultural labour. The riposte is that for the vast
majority of these women the only alternative is
the lower, less reliable income from non-Fairtrade
agriculture. Social enterprise is making up for the
failings of the for-profit sector.
There were occasional examples noted during this
research of social enterprises that did not provide
adequate facilities for their employees. One social
enterprise in India provided no toilet facilities for
women, for example. These examples were rare
but offer proof that being a social enterprise does
not in itself ensure that the jobs it provides are
good ones. That said, examples of poor working
conditions are far more common in the for-profit
sector in India.
7.3.2 Jobs not specifically
for beneficiaries
Jobs in the social enterprise sector that are
not created specifically for beneficiaries
tend to be lower paid than in other sectors.
Social enterprises tend to be small and
under‑resourced compared to NGOs and
for‑profit businesses. Often they rely on the sense
of mission their staff feel to compensate for
the lower wages.
The social enterprise sector also fares worse
than the for-profit, public and NGO sectors when
it comes to providing employee benefits such
as paid maternity leave.
It fares better than other sectors in perceptions
of equal opportunities for men and women
and particularly opportunities for women
leaders. It is also rated more highly than other
sectors for being able to flex working around
family commitments. This is evidenced by the
high number of part-time jobs in the social
enterprise sector.
50 51
Thomson Reuters Foundation and WeStart both
conducted research, which concluded that the
social enterprise sector has a gender wage gap,
with men earning more than women. As with the
pay gap in other sectors, there are a number
of factors contributing to this.
Social enterprises led by women tend to be
smaller; women are less well represented in
senior positions; women are over-represented
in part‑time work; women tend to award
themselves lower rates of pay; women are often
less forceful in negotiating pay settlements than
men; women often lose several years of career
progression when they have children; and so on.
In the UK, where there is gender pay gap
information on the social enterprise sector,
it is considerably above the UK average, but below
the gap evident in the voluntary (NGO) sector.
Gender pay gap in the UK by sector.
Social
Enterprise Private Public
Voluntary
Sector
UK
Average
2016 25% 16.6% 11.3% 36% (2012) 13.9%
There are also examples of social enterprise
challenging the gender pay gap. In a village
of block print artisans in Rajasthan, for example,
women support the printing process at many
levels, but the (male) printers are paid five to six
times more for their work. Social enterprises are
bringing about an awareness that women can
challenge these norms. One social enterprise
asked women to take over the finishing process
for their products, a higher-paid role traditionally
performed by men.
7.4 Do social enterprise jobs
reinforce gender stereotypes?
‘In my experience in developing countries, social
enterprise has been seen to reinforce gender
roles. Vocational training for women, for example,
is normally focused on jobs related to sewing
and beauticians whilst men are in construction
or computer engineering. Not only is this
reinforcing the gender roles but the industries
men tend to go into have much higher earning
potentials.’ – Allie McGonagle Glinski, International
Center for Research on Women (ICRW)
Eighty one per cent of our survey respondents
believe social enterprises are challenging
gender norms, but most felt they could be
doing much more.
In the for-profit sector, female entrepreneurs
tend to be concentrated in the service sector and
in businesses that conform to conventional female
roles – such as beauty parlours, food vending
and sewing. In addition, women tend to work
in sectors, industries, occupations and jobs with
lower average earnings.
In social enterprise, we also see a similar degree
of gender segregation. Women tend to be
under‑represented in tech and industry and
over‑represented in the care sectors, for example.
There is good reason for this, particularly
where social enterprises are trying to create
employment opportunities for disadvantaged
women. It is easier to create employment
opportunities where women already have at least
some of the skills needed and where there
is a ready market for women’s services. What
this means is that the economic opportunities
created (jobs or self-employment) tend to be
in roles that are considered traditional for
women, such as craft and textiles. They empower
particular groups of women but in a way that
conforms to existing stereotypes of appropriate
female employment.
Some social enterprises are deliberately
challenging such gender stereotypes by
training and employing women in industries
where they are under-represented. Blackburne
House in the UK, for example, run a training
academy to support women into the construction
industry. This is mirrored by Mulher em
Construção ‘Woman in Construction’ in Brazil.
And the Women on Wheels programme in India
empowers resource‑poor women to become
professional drivers.
It would seem that it is often easier to challenge
stereotypes through funded training programmes
than through financially sustainable social
enterprises, however. Jobs are easier to create
when you do not have to overcome gender
stereotypes as well as social exclusion.
7.5 Section 7 Conclusion
The social enterprise sector employs
proportionally more women than the workforce
as a whole, and more than the private sector
in each country. Furthermore, many of the
women employed by social enterprises are
from particularly disadvantaged backgrounds
(e.g. as a result of poverty or abuse).
But for those in leadership and management
positions, pay in the social enterprise sector is
often lower than in other sectors. Also, as in the
wider economy, there is a substantial gender pay
gap with men earning more than women. Evidence
suggests the pay gap in social enterprise is at
least as high as in other sectors. Part of the pay
gap is due to a gender segregation.
The social enterprise sector generally conforms
to the same gender segregation as the
wider economy in each country, with women
over‑represented in care, education and catering,
and under-represented in manufacturing
and tech, for example. One reason the social
enterprise sector has a high proportion of women
staff is that there are more social enterprises
in sectors dominated by women than in those
dominated by men. And since society undervalues
social care work, these jobs tend to be lower paid
than those in more male dominated sectors.
There are, however, some striking examples
of social enterprises addressing this gender
segregation by training and employing
women in non-traditional industries such
as construction and IT.
52 53
Social enterprise is not an alternative
to other models of women’s empowerment
and it is not a new tool for empowering women.
It is under‑utilised, however, and where it is used
could be even more effective.
Women’s empowerment organisations are
underfunded and less than a third are currently
using social enterprise to fund their activities.
The research uncovered many well-regarded,
independent social enterprises working in the
area of women’s empowerment. On the whole,
they are not well known or well networked.
There is considerable opportunity for sharing
best practice and replicating successful business
models and approaches.
This would help increase the number and
effectiveness of social enterprises with a focus
on women’s empowerment.
Women social entrepreneurs are an under‑utilised
resource. Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor
(GEM) statistics, if women were starting up social
enterprises at the same rate as men we could
see an additional 12 million women social
entrepreneurs across Brazil, India, Pakistan,
the UK and the USA alone48
.
There are already many women social
entrepreneurs in all five countries creating
considerable social impact. Giving them greater
recognition could inspire even more women
to start social enterprises. A lack of female role
models in social enterprise is one of the barriers
facing women social entrepreneurs, particularly
in Brazil, India and Pakistan.
There are other barriers facing women
social entrepreneurs, and governments and
intermediaries should look seriously at addressing
them. When less than three per cent of the global
population is involved in social entrepreneurship,
yet the need for social impact is so high, can we
really afford for women to start social enterprises
at a fifth the rate of men (as in Pakistan and
Brazil)? Women social entrepreneurs are an
under-utilised resource.
The social enterprise sector should be proud
of its record of producing women leaders but
certainly not complacent. More work needs to
be done to support women leaders in the sector,
and more work needs to be done with larger
social enterprises to make sure they consider
their board, leadership teams and pay structures
with a gender lens. A sector that exists to create
a better world should not have a glass ceiling
or a gender pay gap.
Our research in Brazil, India, Pakistan, the UK
and the USA has shown that social enterprise is
already empowering women and girls across the
world. It could be doing even more.
8.1 Recommendations
Each of the five countries is completely different
in the challenges facing women and girls;
the scale and needs of the social enterprise
sector; the capacity and practices of funders
and investors; and in government policies and
legislation. As a result, most of the specific
recommendations arising from this research are
contained within the individual country reports.
There are, however, recommendations that
can be shared across all five countries and can
almost certainly apply more widely. Although we
have categorised these recommendations into
the four stakeholder groups for which they are
most relevant, several could apply to more than
one group.
8.1.1 Governments
1.	 Governments should bear in mind that any
policies to support women into work will
actively support the social enterprise sector,
which has a disproportionately high female
workforce.
2.	 Governments should prioritise eliminating
the gender imbalance between caring
responsibilities through legislation and
financial support for shared parental leave
and affordable childcare. The social enterprise
sector should also look to address these
two issues.
3.	 Governments and social enterprises should
work in partnership to increase the use of
social entrepreneurship education in schools
and include a specific focus on addressing
gender inequality.
8.1.2 Women’s empowerment
organisations
4.	 Increase the use of social enterprise among
women’s empowerment organisations
by providing specific packages of training,
support, investment and mentoring.
8.1.3 Social enterprises
and intermediaries
5.	 Increase the number of social enterprises
that focus on women’s empowerment through
campaigns, accelerator programmes,
competitions and funding.
6.	 Facilitate networking between
gender‑focussed social enterprises nationally
and internationally with a view to sharing
best practice and replicating successful
models. Ideally, this should be coupled with
kick‑starter funding.
8 Conclusions and
recommendations
54 55
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7.	 Increase the rate of women-led social
enterprise start-ups through targeted support
packages, accelerators, greater exposure
to female role models, and targeted financial
assistance, particularly in Brazil, India and
Pakistan. These programmes should be
flexible and include childcare. If women were
starting social enterprises at the same rate
as men there would be over 50 per cent more
social enterprises in these countries.
8.	 Provide specific social enterprise accelerator
programmes in poor communities
where there are high rates of informal
‘micro‑social‑entrepreneurship’ with a view
to supporting women to set up formal NGOs
or social enterprises.
9.	 Increase the number of female social
enterprise leaders through mentoring,
targeted leadership programmes,
and facilitated peer-support.
10.	Integrate gender equality into social enterprise
business models, with a particular focus
on gender balance on boards. Encourage
recruitment to skills rather than experience
of scale to prevent perpetuating the imbalance
of men leading larger organisations. Research
by Acumen suggests that integrating
gender equality has the potential to make
social enterprises more resilient, successful
and impactful.
11.	Provide more opportunities for
under‑employed women using social
enterprises to create flexible, part-time
jobs. Globally, women are under-employed
compared to men, and women put 90 per cent
of their income back into their family, while
men put in less than 40 per cent. Employing
women therefore has a greater social impact
on the health and opportunities of whole
families compared to employing men.
12.	Research, understand and publicise the
gender wage-gap in social enterprise.
8.1.4 Funders and investors
13.	Learn the lessons of the Young Foundation’s
report, The Sky’s the Limit; use a ‘gender
lens’ when making investment decisions;
understand the additional barriers faced
by women social entrepreneurs as well as
the strengths of women-led social enterprises.
14.	Ensure a gender balance in panels making
lending and investment decisions.
15.	Set specific targets for a portfolio that
is balanced for gender and race to reflect
the country’s population.
16.	Record and publish data on the level
of investment into male and female-led
social enterprises; the gender composition
of leadership teams and boards; and the
impact of those investments.
17.	Set criteria for social enterprises to meet
before receiving a grant or investment
including:
a.	 have gender-balanced boards
b.	 record and measure their social and
environmental impact, and include gender
equality as a metric.
18.	Increase the supply of funding and social
investment into social enterprises focussing
on gender, especially where these are
also in sectors considered ‘non-traditional’
for women.
9 References
56
42.	http://data.worldbank.org/
43.	British Council & SEUK Surveys
44.	http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/docu-
ments/2014/coopsegm/grace.pdf
45.	http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/fea-
ture/2013/02/22/Brazil-why-promoting-equal-
pay-is-good-for-economy-job-market
46.	https://ideas.repec.org/a/jge/journl/224.html
47.	Daman Prakash. ‘Rural Women, Food Security,
and Agricultural Cooperatives.’ 2003.
48.	http://www.gemconsortium.org/report/48437