Neoliberalism's Impact on Women Entrepreneurs in the Global South: Exploring the Challenges and Opportunities

Introduction

When it comes to starting a firm, this level of women entrepreneurs ranks just below North American and Chinese women in terms of sheer numbers (Chant, 2013). It's important to remember that the country's present standing is largely thanks to the active engagement of women. In spite of the fact that south countries has long been interested in entrepreneurship, it wasn't until the 1990s that the country stepped up its efforts in this direction in light of the global trend toward more job flexibility and technology advancements. Because they cannot be replaced in the labour market and out of need, women are pushed to act in order to ensure their existence, which happens on a broad scale via informal professional practice as one of the repercussions.

Public policies for minorities have been promoted by national and international organizations because they understand the importance of taking special measures to address this population, which suffers from multiple forms of discrimination, exacerbated by patterns of social, political, and economic exclusion in the country. These findings show that women should not only be analyzed but also be at the center of any public policy initiatives aimed at improving their status in societies in the Global South.

BOP

There has been a significant increase in the number of female entrepreneurs in the South since 2000, according to data from the GEM. Taken as a time frame, the years 2002-2007 are used to chart the progress made in creating a more equal working environment for southern female business owners and entrepreneurs. those who had to look at entrepreneurs in more detail due to necessity. Gender discrepancies in the workplace have been identified by national and international organizations after conducting a number of studies. Although it is feasible to understand how educational advancements may benefit the professional engagement of women, these advancements have yet to be reflected in their economic practices. Public policy initiatives that seek to improve working conditions and gender equality have helped women in recent years. Because of this, it has been impossible to predict big gains in the larger picture that would reduce the asymmetries of increased vulnerability in this specific group's everyday lives (Chant, 2013). Gender-based obstacles and challenges exist in the development and implementation of public policies, such as: lower salaries for women, even if they are in the same professional position as men, and changes in family structure; underemployment, high involvement in the informal sector and in precarious and/or nonpayment occupations, the care for private space and the changes taking place in the home structure;

Development in the time of globalisation

We refer to this development as globalisation, which refers to the integration of nations' financial and cultural systems via international organisations. From the beginning of the 20th century forward, globalisation became more pronounced because of the widespread availability of communication tools (Chaudhry, 2019). An worldwide strategy of financial integration is promoted by the IMF, the UN, and the World Bank, which are all international institutions. There is an issue with this situation because we see an unequal connection in which one is considerably stronger than the other and consequently ends up assuring its advantages to the cost of the weaker one. Furthermore, the culture of emerging nations, which is displaced by hegemonic cultures like the United States, creates an atmosphere suitable to the ideological dominance of weaker countries by stronger ones (Eisenstein, 2017). In many regions of the globe, feminist legacies are currently under growing examination. Women's advancement throughout Latin America, Africa and most of South and Southeast Asia seems to be insufficient in the light of the destruction done by structural adjustment initiatives. There is a rising worry about the confluence of neoliberal capitalism's ambitions with some versions of feminism. first to examine what she called the "dangerous link" between modern capitalism and a liberal feminism that dominates today was her.

This means that we must pay attention not just to what neoliberal administration says, but also to the silences that it creates. Social transitions, public engagement, the social compact, social justice, power relations, and social conflict are the most crucial silences in the governance matrix. Crisis of legitimacy was defined in the 1970s using these terms (Bastia & Piper, 2019). Modern critical theory was also founded on these ideas. Critical theory has been defeated on both the social and political levels by government, which silences them without providing a good alternative. Instead of social transformations, solving problems; instead of popular participation, participation of holders of recognised interests (stakeholders) instead of the social contract, ego; instead of social justice, positive-sum games and compensatory policies; instead of power re-election, the government proposes a negative alternative: Since the whole conceptual instrument, ideological and technological, of governance is at odds with the logic of the market, it is possible to question the notion that governance is the type of government of neoliberalism based on the supremacy of market rules. Creative destruction is replaced by social issues; profitability is replaced by social cohesiveness; unanticipated repercussions are replaced by consequences that are addressed as if they had been predicted (Wilson, 2011). In the place of the market, the civil society. In a nutshell, the governance matrix arose to repair market failings, influenced by a social logic rather than an economic rationale. I believe that social redistribution is the most pressing issue of our day. There are others, too. Social redistribution has been complicated in recent years by the need to acknowledge and respect differences.

Gender Equality

Equality isn't the only virtue we hold dear in today's society; it's just one of many (Tansel, 2017). When the 1970s legitimacy problem was first defined, there was a lack of emphasis on the identification of differences without hierarchy between them. If government can address both social redistribution and the recognition of diversity, it will be a success. In light of what I indicated before, I don't think that the governance matrix generates any major social redistribution. In the case of recognising difference rather than social redistribution, governance is in a better position to address the issue, but even then its structural limits will be clear.

"Bottom of the Pyramid" was the initial name given to this notion by Prahalad and Hart in a 1998 research report. However, the phrase "Bottom of the Pyramid" is more often used as a synonym in modern literature since it better describes the setting of the pyramid base (Speak, 2013). The definition of this base varies from source to source. Currently, the World Bank's data is often used to define "severe poverty" and "moderate poverty" based on a per income per capita (measured in purchasing power parities) of up to US $ 1.25 per day and 1.25 to 2.5 US dollars per day, respectively (Soederberg, 2004). Thus, the whole BOP is home to more than half of the world's population; some estimates put the number at over 4 billion. Radhakrishnan & Solari (2015) argue that such "poverty lines" are flawed, and that the BoP should not be defined by income (or other comparable monetary values), but rather by the special qualities of such marketplaces, such as subsistence and informality, rather than by their monetary worth.

A major objective of the original Prahalad strategy is to find previously untapped sales markets at the bottom of the pyramid. At the present projected value of more than US $ 5 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP), the BoP has an unusually large market potential. The individuals at the BoP have so far remained mostly outside of the global market system, despite the existence of several commercial possibilities. This is mostly owing to the widespread misperceptions, particularly in the richer regions of the globe. According to the writers cited, the idea that there is not enough buying power at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) and hence no sustainable market has to be challenged. People in low-income areas have the ability to buy goods and services that would otherwise be out of reach to them because of their collective buying power.

Instead of seeing the BoP as just a sales market at the conclusion of a value chain, modern interpretations view it as an integral component with its own added value potential. In particular, the incorporation of the BoP in different stages of the value chain, as well as the development of additional sales prospects, are the emphasis of these initiatives (Singh, 2013). A resource pool's commercial potential are thought to be overlooked because of a narrow focus on sales markets alone. For many of the small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) at the BoP, the integration into global value chains offers a link to sales markets outside of their original business sectors.

According to the original BoP idea, sales potential for markets located on the BoP are smaller than they seem to be. Tobacco goods and alcohol have been questioned in certain circumstances because of their perceived quality advantages for the general public. The unfettered spread of western consumerism and consumption practises might potentially have severe effects for the BoP and sustainable development in the future.. Some argue that private sector enterprises alone aren't enough to improve the lives of the world's poorest people, while others argue that the BoP concept's business models need additional efforts by other stakeholders (e.g. state or civil society institutions).

Ethnographic evidence

Ethnographic evidence from outside of formal markets, however, shows otherwise. A medium-term future is what BoP entrepreneurs strive to avoid, and the 'ethics of immediacy' is what its proponents sell. One might see this as a strikingly distinct view of development. It mirrors a transition in the larger development sector from the big designs of macro-economic restructuring and transformation that previously fueled national visions of modernity, to a entrepreneurial person as the catalyst to human betterment and national prosperity. It's not only humanitarian aid that's being replaced by entrepreneurship and 'inclusive markets' in these new economies of development, but also long-term goals like sustainable wide ranging development that were the stock-in-trade of the development community less than a decade ago . For example, Zaloom points out that the change in planning from macroeconomic restructuring to microeconomic planning or individual choice is a result of this new objectivist paradigm of progress, which re-scripts growth as personal development. Whether it's economic policy or religious dogma, this shows the risk of projecting experience without illustrating how it is concretely experienced or even how it could offer new opportunities for action alongside impotencies (Davids et al., 2015). We want to focus on the issue of agency. When we talk about temporality, we aren't talking about its fundamental essence, but rather how it moulds or limits the abilities of those who find themselves in such dangerous situations. Rather than the 'mandated presentism' of neoliberal temporalities, we find a more complex interaction of constraints, ambition, and agency in our ethnography of the BoP business, which we detail in our paper. Similarly to the medium-term focus of new recruits, we see pockets of (although limited) agency coexisting with the powerlessness of lives spent under extreme stress (Saavedra & Pérez, 2018). A dark future and a terrible present don't need the kind of self-empowerment that the BoP's own rhetoric encourages, and this is not an attempt to imitate that language. Insecurity of such a severe kind does not decrease the 'psychic turbulence' associated with it. Because of the scarcity and uncertainty, our goal is to understand how individuals are able to re-enroll in ambitions of mobility or hope for a better life.

Considerations, conceptual expansions, and empirical significance are a few of the topics that will be discussed in the following sections. Expanding the BOP idea to incorporate procurement marketplaces and manufacturing operations is a substantial expansion. There has been an increased emphasis on collaboration with other players in the field of development cooperation. Numerous case studies on successful BOP business models demonstrate the empirical usefulness of such types of collaboration (Graaff & Ha, 2015). Considerations on corporate social responsibility have been explicitly linked to successful business initiatives around the BOP in a number of talks. The subject of whether and how these business strategies support development and sustainability has also been examined in recent study (Saavedra & Pérez, 2018). For example, Western lifestyles that rely on a lot of resources might put future generations at risk. Economically, the concept of "social business" has a lot in common with the former. However, social business models are more concerned with social outcomes than with profit margins (for example, the creation of jobs or the supply of essential goods). Reinvesting earnings in certain social issues is the goal here.

Global South Woman's

By virtue of the non-absorption of labour as a result of the ongoing changes in the external environment and the precariousness and flexibility of employment, the new economic order favours individuals being inserted into other productive activities. In spite of their advanced education, women are still at the bottom of the pyramid when it comes to the financial resources they get from their work. This has prompted many women to look for new methods to make ends meet (Runyan, 1999). Women's engagement in the economy may be highlighted in this scenario via entrepreneurial acts, where they put their knowledge into practise, typically as a consequence of a communal construction based on the axes of equality and justice (family, local and cultural). There has been an increase in entrepreneurial activity by women in the economy, while not necessarily related to organised professional action and still lacking in management direction, limiting the potential for empowerment, but present and in quest of progress in the face of new obstacles. When it comes to starting a firm, this level of women entrepreneurs ranks just below North American and Chinese women in terms of sheer numbers (Reynolds, 2008). It's important to remember that the country's present standing is largely thanks to the active engagement of women. In spite of the fact that countries like Brazil has long been interested in entrepreneurship, it wasn't until the 1990s that the country stepped up its efforts in this direction in light of the global trend toward more job flexibility and technology advancements. Because they cannot be replaced in the labour market and out of need, women are pushed to act in order to ensure their existence, which happens on a broad scale via informal professional practise as one of the repercussions. Public policies for minorities have been promoted by national and international organisations because they understand the importance of taking special measures to address this population, which suffers from multiple forms of discrimination, exacerbated by patterns of social, political, and economic exclusion in the country. These findings show that women should not only be analysed, but also be at the centre of any public policy initiatives aimed at improving their status in societies in the Global South. There has been a significant increase in the number of female entrepreneurs in the South since 2000, according to data from the GEM (Radhakrishnan & Solari, 2015). Taken as a time frame, the years 2002-2007 are used to chart the progress made in creating a more equal working environment for southern female business owners and entrepreneurs. those who had to look at entrepreneurs in more detail due to necessity. Gender discrepancies in the workplace have been identified by national and international organisations after conducting a number of studies (Kirk & OkazawaRey, 2000). Although it is feasible to understand how educational advancements may benefit the professional engagement of women, these advancements have yet to be reflected in their economic practises. Public policy initiatives that seek to improve working conditions and gender equality have helped women in recent years. Because of this, it has been impossible to predict big gains in the larger picture that would reduce the asymmetries of increased vulnerability in this specific group's everyday lives (Patel & McMichael, 2004).

Gender-based obstacles and challenges exist in the development and implementation of public policies, such as: lower salaries for women, even if they are in the same professional position as men, and changes in family structure; underemployment, high involvement in the informal sector and in precarious and/or nonpayment occupations the care for private space and the changes taking place in the home structure;

State expenditures were cut by implementing a neoliberal strategy, which privatised numerous state corporations and provided incentives for foreign businesses to open new branches in our nation. While the economy remained stable, the gap between the rich and the poor grew even more pronounced. Public services were eliminated (Miraftab, 2009). A lack of money meant that hospitals, schools, and public institutions were unable to purchase essential supplies. There was a lack of public career progression opportunities for teachers, police officers, doctors, as well as federal government officials in general. Unhappy workers staged a series of strikes, while the country's poorest citizens were malnourished and unable to get adequate health care or education (Medie, Peace A & Kang, 2018). As the economy recovered, social concerns were pushed to the side. As the IMF and globalisation spread neoliberalism, the educational systems of developing nations have embraced neoliberal policies and theoretical ideas to shape their curriculum.

Conclusion

Public education systems may be privatised or outsourced, and public-private partnerships can be formed to handle educational programmes. It is clear that governments are unwilling to completely bear the responsibility for public education and are promoting the concept that education should be removed from the state's control in order to reduce its burden. Non-profit organisations such as the Millennium Institute and the Leman Foundation, which provide goods and services to help leverage education, have evolved in this context. The neoliberal logic of meritocracy the assumption that success is the single and exclusive product of human work and the significance of entrepreneurship for students at school are passed on by educational institutions that use these methods. Consensus norms scepticism was widespread throughout Latin America in the early 1990s. Although economy was bolstered by the real plan, it lost a lot of money by following the rule of unlimited privatisation, and our State was weakened to the point that it couldn't invest in public services. Criticisms of the neoliberalization of the educational system might centre on training: Neoliberal educations are designed to produce individuals who are ready to compete in the capitalist world, whereas liberating educations are more concerned with the development of citizens and intellectuals.

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21 Jun 2023