The impact of entrepreneurship training on self-employment of rural female entrepreneurs in Uganda

Abstract

Although entrepreneurship training may improve labour market outcomes of individuals, little is known about the impact of entrepreneurship training on self-employment in Uganda. In this study, a survey of 300 rural women in Uganda is undertaken before and four months after participating in an entrepreneurship training programme to examine the impact of entrepreneurship training on self-employment. Business knowledge and business competence indices are used as measures of training effectiveness, and a self-employment probit regression model is utilized to examine the impact of training on self-employment. The main findings of this study suggest that an increase in the business knowledge index and the business competence index by one unit can lead to 6 per cent and 2.7 per cent increase in the probability of being self-employed. These findings are important for the design and implementation of appropriate policy and programmes to improve the labour market outcomes of women in rural Uganda.