Programme de bourses "Jeunes Chercheurs"

Social capital and woman entrepreneurship en Sub-Saharan Africa: Stakes, social and economic implications for Senegalese women.

This research aims at highlighting the social implications of women’s entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Senegal. The stakes in social (gender equality) and economic domain in terms of growth justify the implementation of recent policies to promote the women’s entrepreneurship. This study tries to answer the sociological questionings about the disparities of the women in their capacities to undertake, in the domains open to them and the social implications regarding their social network. The aim is also to clarify the forms of social integration of the Senegalese women in complex family configurations and to estimate the resources which these configurations put or not at their disposal.
The concept of women’s entrepreneurship is conceived in a broad sense; it integrates the activities of women into different forms of entrepreneurship: traditional form (ex. farming), modern form (services), formal or informal.
Transformation of values and economic crisis and their effects on transforming family structures are catalysts of the diversification of the family configurations in Senegal. The women are central in family exchanges; however, the importance of traditions and the dominated status of women can make the emergent family arrangements unstable. Are the women then capable of putting in their profit these resources by developing strategies to strengthen their social capital and to emphasize their capabilities (in Sen’s perspective)?
We hypothesize that diverse family configurations bring different types of social capital for women which play a significant role in capacities of women to undertake and to promote their status by getting personal autonomy in their lives and in their relations of couple. We also postulate that the trajectory of life and the position in the system of social stratification are differential factors of social capital. Our sample is constituted by 400 married women of the "sandwich-generation", aged between 25 and 50 years old living in Saint Louis and its region, in town and in the rural zone.

Key-words: social capital, capabilities, family configurations, woman entrepreneurship, gender and family relationship, woman autonomy.

ADRESSES
Institution au Nord:
Laboratoire de démographie et d'études familiales
Département de sociologie
Université de Genève
40, boulevard du Pont d'Arve. 1211 Genève 4
Téléphone : 022 379 89 25
Fax : 022 379 89 39
E-mail: abadieng@yahoo.fr

Première institution au Sud:
Centre Interdisciplinaire d’Études et de Recherche de la Vallée.
Département de sociologie
Université Gaston-Berger de Saint-Louis
B.P. 234 - Saint-Louis - SENEGAL
Tel. : (221) 33 9 61 99 88 / - Fax. : (221) 33 9 61 51 39
E-mail: mailto:gmbodj@usl.refer.snciervalugb@gmail.com
URL: http://www.ugb.sn/recherche/cierval.htm

Seconde institution du Sud:
ECOLES-ATELIER SAINT-LOUIS DU SENEGAL (EASS)
Bureau de direction CRDS
CRDS (Centre de Recherche et Documentation du Sénégal) ex IFAN Rue Général Leclerc, Contact: Cheikh Tidiane Bathily
B.P. 108 Saint-Louis du Sénégal
Tel : (00221) 33 961 81 87
Fax : (00221) 33 961 81 86
Adresse e-mail : ecoles_ateliersl@yahoo.fr
Site web: www.eass.sn