An Empirical Examination of Women Entrepreneurial Drive on the Production and Sales of Smoked Fish in Badagry and Epe Local Government Areas of Lagos

The significance of women entrepreneurial drive in economic development and growth cannot be underestimated as they have become income earners, employer of labour, reducing poverty rate, raising standard of living and contributing to national income through tax payment. Nigeria like any other Africa countries is with high rate of unemployment and underemployment, weak qualitative educational advancement, insecurity and poor infrastructural development in most cities and nearly all the rural setting. In traditional and religious arrangement in Africa women engagement in trading are limited and not encouraged as women role are seen to be domestic. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have shown new drive in the women fold as most of them are trying to be economically relevant in their various ways of life (Smith and Hunter, 2006) by finding their ways into risk taken ventures, labour market and demanding for women right to freedom to associate and be involved in activities outside the basic home keeping (Bragger, 1996), (Buttner and Moore, 1997), these make them to be self-driven with entrepreneurial activities and initiative. At the moment, the number of women entrepreneurs are gaining momentum and increasing all over the world. Countries like Canada and U.S have women entrepreneurs contributing to national development. Asian Tigers were not left out as several entrepreneurial initiative programmes are implemented to support this drive. Few African countries like Nigeria are coming up on realization of the importance of women in business and their contributions to important financial family issues. It was opined by Mass and Herington (2006) that women entrepreneurs are growing faster than the male counterpart making efforts to create fortune and better living conditions for their respective families. The degree of intensity of women in business led to the renewed focus on gender flexibility in entrepreneurial activities and ensuring adequate support and intervention for sustainability. Globally, different policies are formulated nationally and internationally to stimulate and encourage private ownership and innovativeness haven believed that is the corner stone of economic development of any nation. Male presence in business activities are seen in virtually all sector of the economy. Despite men dominance of business activities, most countries of the world especially Africa nations now encouraged women participation in business activities which is believed to be outside the primary responsibility of a woman as a wife in a traditional setting like Nigeria. But with women contributions to the living standard of their various homes, reducing poverty level and encouragement from developed economy for women empowerment (McConnell, 2007) the view that women have tendency of bringing prosperity and contributing to standard of living and economic growth in the world at large therefore suggest women entrepreneurial drive be encouraged. Considering this argument, Downing and Daniel (1992) note that activities of women entrepreneurs in some cities in Africa like Lesotho in South Africa are still very low. However, there is the need to explore the relative involvement of women in smoking of fish and sales relative to their male counterpart that were traditionally recognized as the original operators of such business and to examine how that has improved the economic standard of the women that are involved in fish smoking and sales and to what extent has it reduce poverty level, create jobs, and contributing to economic development of their locality. Research on women entrepreneurs in this area remain insignificant as no much write up exist. It was recently that few researches exist on women entrepreneurship in this part of the world but not on the fish smoking and sales in Badagry area of Lagos State. This justifies the reason for earnest investigation into the involvement of women in fish smoking and sales in Badagry Local Government area of Lagos State. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the level of women engagement in fish smoking and sales and how it has elevated their entrepreneurial consciousness and enhances their earnings, reduce poverty level, raise standard of living and generating income for the government and to consider the level of women entrepreneur discrimination and socio-cultural constraints. HO: women entrepreneurial drive has not reduce poverty level and raise standard of living of the families HA: women entrepreneurial drive has reduce poverty level and raise standard of living of the families HO: women entrepreneurial development is not affected by socio-cultural constraints HA: women entrepreneurial development is affected by socio-cultural constraints