WOMEN’S DAY SPECIAL — Women and Social Entrepreneurship
Women continue to face barriers when it comes to their professional careers — including gender bias, conscious and unconscious, resulting in unequal opportunities, choices, and outcomes. In Singapore, women earn a staggering S$640,000 less than their male counterparts over a 40-year career. The gender gap in the workforce (including wages, promotions, and other opportunities) is still one of the main challenges for women across South East Asia (CNA, 2020).
Entrepreneurship has emerged as a solution to give more economic opportunities, including women, regardless of age and industry. Across the ten ASEAN member countries, an estimated 61.3 million women entrepreneurs own and operate businesses. In 2016, the proportion of firms with female participation in ownership was 69 percent in the Philippines, 64 percent in Thailand, and 51 percent in Viet Nam. This progress mirrors other cultural and policy achievements in the last decade (UN ESCAP, 2019).
On this International Women’s Day, we had a chat with Cynthia Cheung, Youth Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Consultant working with Youth Co:Lab, an initiative co-led by UNDP and Citi Foundation. An entrepreneur herself, over the last three years, Cynthia has worked with over 1000 startups in the Youth Co:Lab ecosystem and is an active enabler of social entrepreneurs in the Asia Pacific region.
1. Let’s start with how you have seen women’s participation and representation in the social entrepreneurship space develop?
Cynthia: I have seen many changes in my three years of my work at the Youth Co:Lab. Mostly because we are at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), we are always aware of gender inclusivity.
Since 2014, I think more women-led social enterprises have emerged. In social entrepreneurship, a collaborative atmosphere is helpful for the business. At the core is the founder’s vision, which gives women-led companies a lot of credibility. In general, many organisations are more inclined to support women-led companies because we know that predominantly they are in it for the right reasons. They usually have much to take care of, and we know they’re sacrificing a lot to get here. Social entrepreneurship has given women an excellent industry. It doesn’t mean that they’re running charities. It means that they’re running good moral businesses.
The female founders that we work with are bold and outspoken. They fight for the vision. They all come from very different backgrounds, some from the more conservative societies and others from liberal backgrounds, but we try to provide equal space for all of them. With a lot of information and encouragement, female founders, just as male founders, can pursue a great deal of execution.
2. So how is the gender gap in workspaces, and how is social entrepreneurship filling it?
Cynthia: The spectrum (of entrepreneurship) is vast. If you look at the tech side of the mainstream startup scene, there is a huge gap of female engineers. On the other hand, we see women better at businesses that focus on the revival of culture and craftsmanship in specific areas of expertise. So it is a mix, but there is still a long way to go.
Digitalisation and global trade for the supply chain have definitely helped propel more women into entrepreneurship. Women are, in general, more closely knit to their peer group and community, which helps them access resources while looking at a digital business. Digitalisation has also benefited female founders who previously couldn’t go to the workspace. If you’re in certain countries or specific cultures, it’s very challenging to exit your home and do the usual things you did once you have children. With the rise of the online digital space, there now is an excellent bridge for female founders to have the same level playing field.
3. Do you think there is a pay gap that exists in social entrepreneurship?
Cynthia: This is an interesting question because there are different strategies for founders to pay themselves when it comes to entrepreneurship. Some of the founders decide to prioritise the growth of their establishment first. We have seen that women founders tend to be more conscious and support more fair wages. Everyone should have a pay equivalent to their ability, regardless of who the business is owned by.
4. Could you mention some of the programmes which are offered to women social entrepreneurs in the Asia Pacific?
Cynthia: We work actively with the Cherie Blair Foundation, which has many women leaders and women founders to support and mentor the entrepreneurs and founders in the region. Cherie Blair herself is very passionate about providing women more access to resources and network. There are a lot of local initiatives as well. We also have seen a rise in see various awards recognising female founders.
5. How is Youth Co:Lab contributing to achieving gender equality among the entrepreneur ecosystem?
Cynthia: Youth Co:Lab works across 25 countries in the Asia Pacific, and we always find female role models. We are also working to see how we can best showcase our female founders while creating various programmatic levels to work with young girls and women. I think young females, in general, are a heavily underrepresented minority in the region. So we bridge that gap and raise awareness of this agenda. We actively nominate our female founders to all the awards that are out there. We also have them on our panels, providing them a space to express themselves.
6. How can the main stakeholders work together to achieve gender equality by 2030?
Cynthia: If we are able to provide a more inclusive work environment, we can make it easier for women founders. Not just women, but I think even for male founders. Making the workspace more family-oriented will result in the efficient working of the employee. Also, providing skills to female founders to help them work at home more productively would be really helpful. I think many of the female founders are exhausted already from juggling many domestic responsibilities, a bulk of which falls on them. If they have more access to online education, it would be great to upskill themselves.
About Youth Co:Lab
Co-created in 2017 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Citi Foundation, Youth Co:Lab aims to establish a common agenda for countries in the Asia-Pacific region to empower and invest in youth so that they can accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through leadership, social innovation and entrepreneurship. To learn more about the Youth Co: Lab, visit: https://www.youthcolab.org/
