The need for Empowering Women Entrepreneurs in an Economy - A Deductive Approach

Abstract

“Women empowerment is a powerful step towards removing gender inequalities and creating conditions for gender equality” which is usually described as “the absence of obvious or hidden disparities among individuals based on gender in terms of opportunities, resources, services, benefits, decision-making power and influence” (OECD, 2011,p.26). The World Economic Forum ranked India at 139 out of 145 countries (The Global Gender Report, 2015). “India ranked 120 among 131 countries in female labor force participation rates and rates of gender-based violence remain unacceptably high. Development of women entrepreneurship is very low in India, especially in rural areas” (ET: WB, 2018). According to 2011 Population Census “Female literacy rate was 65.46 percent and the work force participation rate for female was 25.51 percent”. Hence the present paper targets at finding how Entrepreneurship can be a tool to achieve Women Empowerment in India, explicitly Puducherry. Based on this, the following objective has been framed to capture the growth of women entrepreneurs at global level, to examine the growth and prospect of Indian Women entrepreneurs and to identify the reasons, people’s opinion, success factors and major constraints faced by the women entrepreneurs in Puducherry region. Secondary data from Global entrepreneurship and development institute, OECD reports, world bank reports, Sustainable development report, Indian Government reports, and census reports has been collected for the first two objectives and for the final objective primary data 25 women employer and 100 women employee is collected in Puducherry region regarding the reason for starting the business, family constrains, people’s opinion and success factors of employee and employers view in Puducherry. Simple ratio, trend analysis, growth rate, percentage methods, qualitative analysis and data visualization technique is used to check the above objective. Based on the analysis policy suggestions are provided.