Poverty and unemployment are critical challenges that confront the post-apartheid government. Over a decade has passed since the implementation of the neoliberal Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy (GEAR), and the policy has largely failed to address the socio-economic inequalities in South Africa. As a result of the lack of job opportunities in the country, many South Africans participate in the growing informal economy. Although there are more men employed informally, women tend to dominate certain sectors such as street trading. Research indicates that many female street traders are the sole providers for their dependants, and thus rely heavily on the small income that is generated. As women, female traders are also tasked with managing their households and taking care of their families. The thesis aims to explore the identities that female street traders construct in relation to their work experiences at home and in the informal economy. The empirical research for this study was conducted in the Hill Street informal market, which is located in the central Pinetown area, within the eThekwini Municipality. In order to address the research problem, this study adopts a feminist approach that highlights the engendered binary logic that pervades western spatial thought. Spatial binaries, such as the space/place and public/private dualisms, are intimately linked to gender. Whilst notions of home in the private sphere are thought to embody feminine characteristics, public space is typically encoded masculine. Feminist geographers argue that how space is conceptualised matters to the construction of gendered identities, in that gender and space are mutually constitutive. In this study a range of qualitative, interpretive techniques are used to explore the meanings that female street traders attach to their work spaces and to their identities as women. By exploring the everyday work activities of female street traders, as they move between engendered public and private space, attention is drawn to how the working experiences of these women both challenge and reproduce traditional ways of conceptualising space and gender. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

Abstract This qualitative study explored the experiences of employed women with breast cancer. The narrative approach using Frank’s (1995) illness types and the feminist perspective were applied in looking at the women’s diversity of experiences and meanings. Purposive sampling was used to recruit women aged 30-49 (n=8) who continued working during treatment and after treatment ended. Face to face, semi-structured interviews were conducted. The findings discovered that all the women got reasonable accommodations; work environment was supportive; and the majority was successful in returning to work despite treatment challenges. Two separated participants reported being locked into job because of medical insurance and discrimination. Concerns identified were: More support from health care professionals, information, dietary, counselling and the need to be listened to. This study can help social workers and other health care professionals to review their roles in supporting women who return to work and in managing the cancer experience.

Abstract This qualitative study explored the experiences of employed women with breast cancer. The narrative approach using Frank’s (1995) illness types and the feminist perspective were applied in looking at the women’s diversity of experiences and meanings. Purposive sampling was used to recruit women aged 30-49 (n=8) who continued working during treatment and after treatment ended. Face to face, semi-structured interviews were conducted. The findings discovered that all the women got reasonable accommodations; work environment was supportive; and the majority was successful in returning to work despite treatment challenges. Two separated participants reported being locked into job because of medical insurance and discrimination. Concerns identified were: More support from health care professionals, information, dietary, counselling and the need to be listened to. This study can help social workers and other health care professionals to review their roles in supporting women who return to work and in managing the cancer experience.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Daniel S. Hamermesh. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.

This study examines female self-employment in British Columbia from 1901 to 1971. Entrepreneurial women comprised a small proportion of the total female labour force but they exhibited differences from the rest of the labour force that deserve attention. The study relies on the Census of Canada to gain perspective on trends in female self-employment over a broad time period; qualitative sources are also utilized, including Business and Professional Women’s Club records, to illustrate how individual businesswomen reflected patterns of age, marital status, and family observed at a broad level. The role of gender in women’s decisions to run their own enterprises and in their choice of enterprise is also explored. While the research focus is British Columbia, this study is comparative: self-employed women in the province are compared to their counterparts in the rest of Canada, but also to self-employed men, and to other working women, in both regions. Regionally, women in British Columbia had higher rates of self-employment than women in the rest of the country between 1901 and 1971. Self-employed women in both British Columbia and Canada were, like wage-earning women, limited to a narrow range of occupational types, but they were more likely to work in male-dominated occupations. Self employed women were also older and more likely to be married, widowed or divorced than wage-earning women; in these aspects, they resembled self-employed men. But there were gender differences: whether women worked in female or male-dominated enterprises, they stressed their femininity. The need to take care of their families, particularly if they had lost a spouse through death or desertion, provided additional rationale for women’s presence in the business world. Family, marital status, age, gender and region all played a role in women’s decisions to enter into self-employment between 1901 and 1971. / Graduate

Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology: Business Administration (Entrepreneurship) in the Faculty of Business at the CAPE PENINSULA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY / The South African government, to accelerate economic growth and development, has identified the Small Medium Micro Enterprises (SMME) sector, and female entrepreneurs, as vehicles capable of bringing about this change. Unfortunately, this growth has been stifled due to the high failure rate of entrepreneurial businesses in the SMME sector. A possible solution for female entrepreneurs is the introduction of start-up support services to empower them to be successful. Empowering entrepreneurs is the function of nurturing and supporting entrepreneurs by providing them with professional skills development and moral support, to impact positively on the business’s sustainability. There is a clear need to widen access to business start-up training and advice to encourage larger numbers of women to embrace self-employment. This implies offering a wide range of start-up support services which encourage women to go into business. Women enter business from a variety of backgrounds and with a wide range of experience. The provision of business start-up training and advice needs to accommodate these very different experiences. Women attending entrepreneurship programmes have often criticised these programmes as being male-orientated and prescriptive. Women are expected to conform to male models and standards of behaviour. While this study relates specifically to female entrepreneurs in the Western Cape, it is set in the context of female entrepreneurship in South Africa. The target population for the research was 150 female entrepreneurs in the Tourism industry in the Western Cape. The study is quantitative in nature, using the survey method for better understanding of the research problem. The study aimed to understand the needs of female entrepreneurs, and to underscore the significance of skills and knowledge transfer from the government to female entrepreneurs. The research explored the role of government in empowering female entrepreneurs in the Tourism industry in Western Cape, and identified support services that can be used to promote the growth and development of female entrepreneurs. Possible solutions to failure rates of female entrepreneurship are also addressed, with specific models for improved business support services for all female entrepreneurs in the Tourism industry in the Western Cape. This will help them to run sustainable businesses as well as provide more jobs. This research recommends that management capability and financial management acumen be regarded as key to success for funding by the entrepreneurs themselves, and the parties involved in supporting and promoting them.

M.A. (Development Studies) / Informal cross-border trade is one of the viable informal sector activities which had become a key livelihood strategy for many Zimbabweans mainly during the time period of 2007 to 2009, at the height of the economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe. That was a period of intense shortages of basic commodities which have left the country depending mainly on donations and imports from neighbouring countries. The study sought to understand the experiences and coping strategies of Zimbabwean women informal cross-border traders operating between Gwanda/Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Johannesburg/Gauteng, South Africa. The study followed the whole chain of trade with focus on experiences and coping strategies of traders at the various stages of informal trade. Semi-structured in-depth interviews and life history analysis were conducted with nine women traders and some informal discussions conducted with bus drivers, artists and other suppliers of goods. Observations were also made which included travelling with informal cross-border traders across the border, being with them when they bought their goods, and staying with them at one of the markets in South Africa where they sold curios they brought from Zimbabwe.The study noted that informal cross-border traders were mostly motivated by the desire to support their children and see them through school, including tertiary education. Their motivation was strong enough to keep them determined to stay in business despite the many challenges that they faced. These challenges included xenophobic attacks, police harassment, transport challenges, bad accommodation while away from home, visa challenges and many others. The coping strategies included finding ways of sharing costs, ‘cheating’ the system where some rules and regulations hindered their progress, and creating a strong social support base and connections. It was also noted that changing economic and political environment had direct impacts on the trade and hence flexibility of goods traded and medium of exchange are a crucial character of the trade in unstable environments.

This thesis presents a case study of women working in the informal sector in the Warwick Avenue Triangle of Durban. It documents and analyses the ways in which twenty women experience and contribute to recent changes in the urban informal sector. The women in this study are seen as knowledgeable agents who actively participate in their changing social and spatial worlds. In order to do this structuration theory, as a general philosophy of society, has been drawn on and linked to substantiative bodies of theory on the informal sector and feminist theory in geography. Field methods, appropriate to the investigation of meanings the informal sector were employed. The data collected was qualitatively interpreted in the light of the theory. The thesis concludes with a summary of the main findings and suggestions are made for policy and areas of future research on women in the informal sector. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sci.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1993.

<p>SAMMANFATTNING</p><p>Vi lever i en tid av ständiga och snabba förändringar. Detta sägs även gälla i arbetslivet. Framförallt kvinnornas roll i arbetet är i förändring, de tar allt större plats inom företagsmarknaden. Det blir allt vanligare att kvinnor startar och driver företag, många av dessa är små.</p><p>Vårt gemensamma intresse för den realistiska livsformsanalysen och kvinnligt företagande blev grunden för detta arbete. Det var av intresse för oss att söka finna svar på hur kvinnliga småföretagare upplever sin situation gällande balans mellan fritid och arbete. Vi ville ta reda på vilka livsformer dessa kvinnor lever för att öka vår förståelse för hur detta påverkar synen på vad som är viktigt i livet och vilka medel de tar till för att nå sina mål i enlighet med detta.</p><p>Livsformsanalysen söker öka vår förståelse för andra individer och hur de väljer att leva sina liv. Alla har vi olika mål och medel för att nå dessa och olika definitioner på vad som är det goda livet. Den livsform vi lever styr på många sätt hur vi ser på verkligheten. Vi utgick från att ett livsformsperspektiv skulle vara fruktbart för denna undersökning då det skulle ge oss förklaringar till det som skiljer olika företagare åt. Vår förförståelse var att kvinnor till större del tar ansvar för hem och familj, det var därför spännande att utröna hur de klarar av att balansera detta ansvar med företagande.</p><p>Då det är upplevelsen av de kvinnliga småföretagarnas situation vi velat undersöka valde vi att göra en kvalitativ undersökning. Vi genomförde fem intervjuer med småföretagande kvinnor som visade sig leva olika livsformer och därmed ha olika förutsättningar för sitt företagande. Gemensamt för dem är att de alla delvis lever självständighetens livsform. I enlighet med detta har de svårt att skilja arbetsliv från privatliv. Analyser av materialet visade att den eller de livsformer företagaren lever påverkar hur hon söker finna balans i tillvaron.</p><p>Nyckelord: Livsformer, kombinationslivsform, balans, småföretagare och kvinnor</p> / <p>ABSTRACT</p><p>We are living in a time of constant and rapid change. This also applies to work life. This applies in particular on the women’s role at work, women gain more ground in the business market. It is becoming more common for women to start and lead their own businesses, many of these are small.</p><p>Our mutual interest in the realistic life mode analysis and in women who run their own businesses became the base of this composition. It was in our interest to find answers about how self employed women experience their situation concerning balance between leisure time and the time of work. We aspired to find out what life modes these women live. This in order to increase our understanding of how this influences their view of what is most important in life and the means they use to acquire their goals.</p><p>The life mode analysis was created to increase our understanding of other individuals and the way they chose to live their lives. All of us have different goals and means to reach them, we have also got different views of what the good life is. The life mode one person lives in many ways predicts how he or she looks upon reality. We assumed that a life mode perspective analysis would be productive on this study since it would explain the differences amongst the self employed women. Our pre understanding was that women usually take on the main responsibility for the home and family .It was interesting to us to find out how they manage to balance this responsibility and their businesses.</p><p>Since we wanted to explore the women’s experiences in our study we chose to make a qualitative research. We made five interviews with self employed women. We found out that they live different life modes, this gives them different conditions under witch they run their businesses. What they all have in common is that they, in part, live the independent life mode. In accordance to this they find it difficult to separate their time of work from their leisure time. Our analysis shows that the life mode or life modes influences how the business woman chooses to find her balance in life.</p><p>Key words: Life modes, combinations of life modes, balance, self employed women</p>

SAMMANFATTNING Vi lever i en tid av ständiga och snabba förändringar. Detta sägs även gälla i arbetslivet. Framförallt kvinnornas roll i arbetet är i förändring, de tar allt större plats inom företagsmarknaden. Det blir allt vanligare att kvinnor startar och driver företag, många av dessa är små. Vårt gemensamma intresse för den realistiska livsformsanalysen och kvinnligt företagande blev grunden för detta arbete. Det var av intresse för oss att söka finna svar på hur kvinnliga småföretagare upplever sin situation gällande balans mellan fritid och arbete. Vi ville ta reda på vilka livsformer dessa kvinnor lever för att öka vår förståelse för hur detta påverkar synen på vad som är viktigt i livet och vilka medel de tar till för att nå sina mål i enlighet med detta. Livsformsanalysen söker öka vår förståelse för andra individer och hur de väljer att leva sina liv. Alla har vi olika mål och medel för att nå dessa och olika definitioner på vad som är det goda livet. Den livsform vi lever styr på många sätt hur vi ser på verkligheten. Vi utgick från att ett livsformsperspektiv skulle vara fruktbart för denna undersökning då det skulle ge oss förklaringar till det som skiljer olika företagare åt. Vår förförståelse var att kvinnor till större del tar ansvar för hem och familj, det var därför spännande att utröna hur de klarar av att balansera detta ansvar med företagande. Då det är upplevelsen av de kvinnliga småföretagarnas situation vi velat undersöka valde vi att göra en kvalitativ undersökning. Vi genomförde fem intervjuer med småföretagande kvinnor som visade sig leva olika livsformer och därmed ha olika förutsättningar för sitt företagande. Gemensamt för dem är att de alla delvis lever självständighetens livsform. I enlighet med detta har de svårt att skilja arbetsliv från privatliv. Analyser av materialet visade att den eller de livsformer företagaren lever påverkar hur hon söker finna balans i tillvaron. Nyckelord: Livsformer, kombinationslivsform, balans, småföretagare och kvinnor / ABSTRACT We are living in a time of constant and rapid change. This also applies to work life. This applies in particular on the women’s role at work, women gain more ground in the business market. It is becoming more common for women to start and lead their own businesses, many of these are small. Our mutual interest in the realistic life mode analysis and in women who run their own businesses became the base of this composition. It was in our interest to find answers about how self employed women experience their situation concerning balance between leisure time and the time of work. We aspired to find out what life modes these women live. This in order to increase our understanding of how this influences their view of what is most important in life and the means they use to acquire their goals. The life mode analysis was created to increase our understanding of other individuals and the way they chose to live their lives. All of us have different goals and means to reach them, we have also got different views of what the good life is. The life mode one person lives in many ways predicts how he or she looks upon reality. We assumed that a life mode perspective analysis would be productive on this study since it would explain the differences amongst the self employed women. Our pre understanding was that women usually take on the main responsibility for the home and family .It was interesting to us to find out how they manage to balance this responsibility and their businesses. Since we wanted to explore the women’s experiences in our study we chose to make a qualitative research. We made five interviews with self employed women. We found out that they live different life modes, this gives them different conditions under witch they run their businesses. What they all have in common is that they, in part, live the independent life mode. In accordance to this they find it difficult to separate their time of work from their leisure time. Our analysis shows that the life mode or life modes influences how the business woman chooses to find her balance in life. Key words: Life modes, combinations of life modes, balance, self employed women