Ghanaian Female Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Canada: Experiences, Challenges, and Coping Strategies

Abstract

Immigrant women of African descent face series of injustices in the process of inte-grating into the host society, particularly in the labour market because they are women and minorities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences, chal-lenges, and strategies of these female immigrant entrepreneurs in Canada. Using snow-ball sampling and in-depth interview, principally these women go into entrepre-neurship due to family considerations. Furthermore, there are several injustices that the women face, such as race regarding the colour of skin, and the accented manner they speak English. The study also finds that Ghanaian women entrepreneurs have developed coping strategies through the building of networks, determination, and " faceless " business transactions to overcome the inequalities, and to win and main-tain clients and expand their business.