WOMEN need to be encouraged not just to occupy management positions in companies but also to start their own ventures.

South African women make up approximately half of the country's workforce and play a crucial role in the economy.

But the low level and quality of female entrepreneurship in South Africa is hampering entrepreneurial growth and activity as well as economic development.

The latest Labour Force survey, conducted by Statistics SA, indicates that the female unemployment rate of 26.5% is 4.7% higher than that of their male counterparts.

Nimo Naidoo, project manager of the Sanlam-Business Partners Entrepreneur of the Year competition, said the profile of South African entrepreneurs had remained largely unchanged in the recent past.

"Though female entrepreneurial activity participation gradually increased in 2010, South Africa is still behind the curve when compared to other emerging economies since men are still substantially more likely to be involved in small and medium enterprise development than women," she said.

According to the 2010 GEM Women's Report - which gauges entrepreneurship in 59 countries - women are equally likely to view entrepreneurship as an attractive opportunity as men, but tend to doubt their own personal capacity and ability.

This might be attributed to their lack of personal contact with other female entrepreneurs.

Naidoo said in South Africa many women were entrepreneurs out of necessity.

This was predominantly in the informal sector, where women would be selling goods to put food on the table.

She said while selling goods was not a bad start, these women need to grow their businesses.

"But what we are really looking for are opportunity entrepreneurs who take the opportunities that are in the economy," Naidoo said.

She said that the country still lacked an entrepreneurial culture.

While she commended the impact made by the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment, Naidoo said: "We need to have a focus on more women. I would like to see women not just seeking jobs.

"In our country, because of the employment equity, what has happened is that there is a great move to increase the number of females.

"If we can find programmes that ease the pressure of finding finance we can see growth in the number of women entrepreneurs," she said.

Research shows that the probability of a woman becoming an entrepreneur "vastly improved when she is exposed to fellow female mentors".

"Contributing factors to the poor state of female entrepreneurship could be related to family orientation, accessing capital, lack of education and external female networking."