Empowering Tanzanian Women: The Moderating Role of Awareness on Stock Market Participation

Abstract

Women are identified as having limited investment opportunities associated with different social, economic and awareness factors. Stock markets such as the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) facilitate women’s ownership of the key sectors of the economy through share ownership. Thus, this paper seeks to examine the moderating role of awareness in empowering women through participation in the DSE. The study involved women who are direct participants in DSE located in the Dar es Salaam region. Multi-stage sampling was applied, and quantitative data collected were analysed using a Multiple regression model. The findings show that women who are employees increase investment size and trading frequency due to increased awareness of DSE activities. Similarly, high income, age and high level of education positively affect women’s investment size and trading frequency of shares in DSE. Therefore, awareness increases knowledge of investment opportunities for women, leading to high investment in DSE. Also, working age and high education level increase women’s knowledge of investment, hence improving investment size and trading frequency in DSE. Thus, the DSE and Capital Market and Securities Authority should increase awareness creation seminars among women to promote financial independence. Apart from that, investment studies should be incorporated into different secondary education syllabi to instill investment knowledge.