Motivations of Female Entrepreneurs in Housing Business and Implications for Sustainable Development of Affordable Housing in Lagos

Abstract

Despite growing belief that housing is a potent platform for alleviating poverty (SDG #1), 
promoting good health (SDG #3) and enhancing decent employment (SDG #8), it is worrisome 
that the sustainable provision of affordable housing for all remains unattainable in many cities 
across Nigeria, including Lagos. Consequently, entrepreneurs exploring opportunities in the 
housing sector are becoming more popular. Emerging evidence also affirms that female 
entrepreneurs are aggressively penetrating the housing market despite prevailing imbalances in 
gender representation. Given the humongous challenges faced by the Lagos housing market and 
the scarcity of studies exploring female entrepreneurship in the housing sector, this study 
examines motivations behind female entrepreneurial participation in the Lagos housing sector. 
Adopting a mixed research methodology, the authors sought to answer the research question: 
What are the factors motivating the participation of female entrepreneurs in the housing sector, 
especially in Lagos? The adopted eclectic approach involved collecting multiple data through 
social media and face-to-face interactions. Between October and November 2018, female 
entrepreneurs in the real estate business and residents of Lagos were asked why they opted for 
entrepreneurship in the housing sector. The responses gathered were critically reviewed and 
pulled to develop a survey instrument, which was later administered among 140 female 
entrepreneurs in housing across the state. Following the extraction of data, the choice of the 
number of factors to be retained was guided by a critical component of exploratory factor