|**_R. Co_**|**Box 2 Motivations of HE owners in their own words**<br>**_ngo (urban)_**_:_|
|---|---|
||_I don‟t want to work in a company or for somebody else. I want to be my own boss so I set_<br>_up my own shop._|
||_I expect to earn from my business. This way, I canput food on the table and pay for my_<br>_children‟s education._|
|<br>**_Rwan_**|_I can‟t find a job so I decided to start a small business. I have no other choice._<br>**_da_**|
|<br>|_We do not like our business. We sell fruits and vegetables because we do not have any other_<br>_thing to do. We would change our business at any time if there is an alternative._<br>_When we were farming survival was very difficult, but now it is a little better because we_<br>_make some money every day so we have some cash. This enables us to meet our immediate_<br>_needs._|
|**_Ugan_**|**_da_**|
||_I don‟t have much education. This is the only thing I know how to do. It is so hard to find_<br>_any other job._|
||_I know I can earn more from my business than from working in a company or for_<br>_somebody else._|
||_I did some vocational training and I want to apply the skills I learned from it._|
|**_Tanza_**|**_nia_**<br>|
|<br>|_I just lost my job and I need to earn to support my family._<br>_I am a retiree and my family needs for more income. I have some savings that I used to_<br>_start my business._|
||_My business gives me a good opportunity to earn more. It does not require much capital,_<br>_plus I can be independent._|
||_My small business allows me to make some money and at the same do my house chores. I_<br>_can work at any time, whenever I want._|
|_Source_|_: Unpublished fieldwork transcripts. See World Bank 2011b and 2012, and Kweka and Fox, 2011_|

Qualitative data from fieldwork in four countries gives a more nuanced perspective, as the owners were able to speak for themselves (Box 2). They suggest that from an individual‟s perspective, both the exclusion view and the inclusion view may be relevant. In rural areas, where the alternative is either lower productivity agriculture or idleness (owing to seasonality factors, for example), the decision to start and maintain an enterprise may be a positive, albeit constrained, choice. In urban areas, starting an enterprise may be a positive decision to enter business for oneself, or it may be an alternative pursued as a second choice, in order to survive. In Rwanda, one trader reported that their economic activity was a plus for them and their families, but another expressed frustration with the limited options available within the sector. The desire to be independent, to have control over hours of work, tasks, and income - the key motivating factor cited all over the world by enterprise owners, large, small and micro, is indeed cited by HE owners in our focus groups, and more often than in the household survey data. And in every country where we conducted fieldwork, the desire to make more income dominated the response, even if it was expressed in one hundred different ways.

Does it matter whether HE owners were “pushed” or “pulled”? Given the inescapable math of informal enterprise growth shown above, it may not. In the medium term, as Fields, (2012) noted, labor force participants will have to create jobs for themselves, whether in agriculture, as accidental NFE owners or as NFE owners attracted into a line of business. And regardless of motivation for entering the sector, HE owners report the same constraints _across_ 20