Women entrepreneurship in rural areas of Osmaniye

The participation of the women, who constitute half the world?s population and the potential workforce and have to stay out of the working life due to gender-based obstacles, on the economy building their own business declines the unemployment and significantly supports the economical spurt. As in many countries all over the world, women entrepreneurship in our country is considered as one of the most powerful tools in solution of women employment problems and several projects, programs and studies are being conducted in order to support the women entrepreneurship.Much the same with rural areas, women entrepreneurship is considered as an important income source for their family budget. In this context, bringing women in poor rural areas most of whom work as unwaged family workers into economy encouraging them to build their own business and participate into business life significantly contributes to rural development.Women?s participating to the entrepreneurship processes in the rural areas and contributing to the rural development and thus to the national development will be possible only by detecting the problems entrepreneur women face and producing efficient solutions to these problems. In this direction, the purpose of this study is to detect the current entrepreneurship activities of women in rural areas of Osmaniye city, note the factors encouraging women into entrepreneurship, investigate the problems in entrepreneurship, to identify the factors affecting the success or failure in entrepreneurship, and offer solutions aimed at the problems identified in the guidance of the findings acquired.The study was conducted through face-to-face survey with 240 women in total who live in 12 villages of Osmaniye. This study found out that women have problems in such subjects as negative attitudes of the environment towards the concept of business-woman, and money-supply while they set up a business; their exhaustion, and recession in market while they run the business. Moreover, it was determined that whether women have an additional income is the most significant variable in their entrepreneurship; less-inclined to be an entrepreneur are those who think that family-unity will weaken, woman will care about her husband and children less, social relationships of the family will decline and the woman will get tired and worn out overmuch in case the woman works; women living in mountain villages encounter more problems than those living in meadow villages, and these women in the mountain villages face more problems in the supply of appropriate materials and recessions in the market.