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Avon is helping to life African women out of poverty, according to a new survey.

According to the research, African women who are Avon Representatives made enough money to cover their typical household expenditures for food and non-alcoholic beverages, clothing and shoes, as well as healthcare.

"Although the amount earned is very small, particularly from a UK point of view, this income, by itself, would put Avon Representatives in the top half of black females in their community and bring them in line with what a black man earns," said researcher Professor Linda Scott of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. 

Researchers surveyed 300 South African American women and found that being an Avon Representative has allowed these women to escape poverty as well as channel self-confidence and hope.

The study also revealed that women who depend on Avon for their primary income and had worked as an Avon Representative for 16 months or more made enough money to be placed in the top 10 percent of self-employed black women in South Africa.  Women who had been working with Avon seven months or less and for whom Avon was their primary source of income earned considerably less.

However, monetary independence is not the only thing that these South African American women have gained. Nearly 89 percent said Avon equipped them with tools that could be used to get other employment and 88 percent said their level of self-confidence was boosted. Some of the group also say that their work with Avon turned them in a role model and "allowed them to 'fulfil their dreams' of self-sufficiency."

 "Working as an Avon Sales Representative provides some impoverished South African women with an opportunity to make money when they had previously thought this impossible," Professor Scott argues. "More than that, we were struck by how enthusiastic these women were about their work and how empowered they felt by it."

Co-researcher Catherine Dolan, from Saїd Business School, University of Oxford said Avon's work in South Africa should lower high hostility to women in the workplace.

"In the past many have viewed the global marketplace as hostile to women's interests, but the example of Avon in South Africa shows this need not be the case," Dolan said. "We must allow the possibility that the marketplace contains mechanisms, such as entrepreneurship, that can be harnessed for feminist purposes.  The important question we should now ask is: how can we make better use of the marketplace in ways which benefit women?"