In Nigeria, data collection began in August 2021 and was completed in August 2022. The study was conducted in three sites: Enugu, Kaduna, and Lagos. In each, we selected low-income communities, conducted censuses of firms, and selected firms to participate to meet the study’s goals in terms of size, industry and ownership. We recruited 200 firms to participate in the study from three research sites; our final sample contains 161 firms, roughly evenly spread across the research sites. In this context it is difficult to have a consistent and objective definition of firm ownership; consequently the study allowed participants to self-define the owner of the firm.

Based on the self-description, 40% of the firms are owned by women (the study protocol set a floor of 30% of firms with a female owner, and in Nigeria we achieved this and more), and 12% are co-owned by a man and a woman; the remaining 48% of firms are owned by men. The study was limited to firms in three industries: light manufacturing, agri-processing, and services. In the Nigerian sample, about 40% of the firms are engaged in light manufacturing (e.g. carpentry, metal works, and garment production); 34% in services (e.g. printing, household services, and private schools); and 25% in agri-processing (e.g. livestock, animal feed production, and milling). 

Data source: National Bureau of Statistics

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