Women Entrepreneurs in Lebanon: Obstacles, Potential, and Prospects

Lebanon's institutional and legal framework for small enterprises is one of gender equality. Yet women's legal status is still considered inferior to that of men by Lebanon's religious personal status courts, and a lack of reform in personal status laws considerably affects women and, especially, women entrepreneurs. Women's economic participation tends to be limited, characterized by gendered career choices, limited technical skills, and early exit from the labor force at marriage. Enterprises led by women have developed less favorably than those led by men. A sample survey of nearly 3,000 micro and small enterprises (8 percent of them led by women) shows that those run by women are mostly crowded together in the trade sector, tend to be very small, experience tougher competition than men's businesses, and achieve profitability only two-thirds that of men's. Women make very little use of business support services and also have more difficulty with taxes and tax administration, and with customs duties. Recommendations are made to increase women's access to vital business skills and to create a more favorable environment for women-owned small- and medium-size enterprises.