Mikwam Makwa Ikwe (Ice Bear Woman) – A National Needs Analysis on Indigenous Women’s Entrepreneurship

3 min read · July 27, 2022
Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, University of Manitoba Asper School of Business

Statistics · Gender · Entrepreneurship · Indigenous Peoples

The goal of this report is to build a comprehensive description of the barriers and challenges that Indigenous women face as they develop their enterprises and to make recommendations for change.

Summary

There are almost 23,000 Indigenous women entrepreneurs across Canada, and Indigenous women are starting up enterprises at twice the rate of non-Indigenous women. From April to June 2020, Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (WEKH) hosted a series of national roundtables on Indigenous women's entrepreneurship across Canada. A total of 16 roundtables were held via video conference, bringing together over 350 participants. The roundtable conversations revealed that while Indigenous women are unique in their skills and backgrounds, they share many challenges and commonalities regarding their experiences with entrepreneurship.

Key findings

• The 2016 Census reported that 22,245 Indigenous women were self-employed and that the number of self-employed Indigenous women was growing faster than that of Indigenous men. 

  The National Indigenous Economic Development Board also suggests that closing the gaps in economic outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples could add $27.7B to Canada's GDP.

Characteristics of Indigenous women entrepreneurs

• Education: A 2020 NACCA report states that many Indigenous businesses operate as sole proprietorships, which are considered higher risk by lenders and hinders their access to financing. Furthermore, Indigenous people generally have lower income and education levels than non-Indigenous Canadians; the Indian Business Corporation and Albertan AFIs found that Indigenous women were less likely (43.4 percent) to have a postsecondary degree than Indigenous men (53 percent). This limits limiting the ability of many Indigenous entrepreneurs to build capital to invest in a business.

• Age: In Canada, women who are the majority owners of SMEs tend to be slightly younger than men: 16.3 percent of women owners are under 40, compared to 14 percent of men owners. They are also less likely than men to be aged 65 or over.

• Size and growth of entrepreneurial activities: Women-owned enterprises are less likely to be classified as high-growth than those owned by men. Similarly, data from 2015 from the Canadian Council on Aboriginal Business (CCAB) shows that Indigenous women entrepreneurs experienced less overall revenue growth over one year than Indigenous men (36 percent vs. 44 percent).

This report lists several barriers that Indigenous entrepreneurs face, including:

• Access to sufficient financial, entrepreneurial, and social capital.

• Lack of mentorship opportunities: Many Indigenous women entrepreneurs have difficulty finding Indigenous women business mentors.

• Lack of training and education: Indigenous women entrepreneurs are not the only ones who lack business education and training when starting a venture, however: entire Indigenous communities often lack basic infrastructure and access to quality education at the elementary and secondary levels, posing a systemic challenge.

In addition, Francophone Indigenous women face particular barriers to entrepreneurship. The obstacles and struggles that Indigenous women face are similar across language groups: lack of mentorship opportunities; lack of Indigenous women represented in entrepreneurship; and trouble accessing financial, entrepreneurial, and social capital. A unique barrier is that non-federal government entrepreneurial initiatives at the national level are often unilingual in English and thus inaccessible for some of the Francophone population, particularly in major Anglophone provinces.

Takeaways

The authors recommend that all organizations in the entrepreneurship ecosystem develop holistic and culturally-relevant programming around personal and business financial literacy for Indigenous women. They suggest the need for collaborations between organizations and Indigenous women to design, lead, and implement programs for their peers.

Recommendations for mainstream financial institutions: 

• Partner with Aboriginal Financial Institutions (AFIs) to create more opportunities for diverse Indigenous women to hold decision-making positions in lending; 

• Create microloans for Indigenous women; 

• Remove discriminating funding requirements against Indigenous women entrepreneurs.

Enterprise support organizations:

• Appoint Indigenous women to their Boards of Directors and ensure senior leadership has Indigenous women representation; 

• Create more mentorship program opportunities by building meaningful relationships with potential Indigenous women mentors.

Read the full report here.

References

Richard, A. (2021). Mikwam Makwa Ikwe (Ice Bear Woman): A national needs analysis on Indigenous women’s entrepreneurship. Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, I.H. Asper School of Business.