Mains Practice Questions

Approach

• Give some data showing women status in India.
• Discuss issues and discriminatin faced by women in general and female entrepreneurs in particular.
• Suggest a way forward.

Introduction

Despite India’s rapid economic growth in recent decades, India still has very few women entrepreneurs, well below several Sub-Saharan African countries on some average measures.

In India, only 20% of the enterprises are women-owned and are founders of only 6% of the Indian startups. The covid-19 pandemic has added fuel to the fire by impacting women disproportionately more.

Body

Issues/challenges faced by Female entrepreneurs

• Stereotypes on Capabilities: Women have historically been viewed as the “weaker sex" - people in need of protection, as opposed to men who have traditionally been characterized as protectors and defenders.
• Patriarchal Construct and Familial Constraints: Even though a lot of women have the potential as well as ambition to make it to the top in arenas that are usually dictated by a stark male presence, they are often denied their dreams by the patriarchal construct of society.
• Constraints Related to Funds: It is not unheard of for women entrepreneurs to be denied basic enablers such as easy access to funds and sponsorships.
  
  • A lot of people have reservations about women’s capabilities in the field of finance as it is traditionally a male-dominated area, given its ‘logical’ basis.
• Lack of Female Mentors: With fewer female business founders, the pool of women who can mentor and advise fellow entrepreneurs is consequently smaller.
  
  • One of the major barriers to women-owned-startups is the lack of role models for women which makes it harder for enterprising women to learn from their peers and tap the help of those who have ‘been there, done that’.

Way Forward

• Providing Facilities that Encourage Women into Leadership: Empowering half the country’s potential workforce offers significant economic benefits beyond promoting gender equality.
  
  • The key drivers of women entrepreneurship are investment in infrastructure and education, which predict a higher proportion of businesses started by women in India.
• Promoting Women to Encourage Women: Gender networks undoubtedly matter for entrepreneurship. Higher female ownership of local businesses in related industries predict greater relative female entry rates.
• Encouraging Women Investors: A majority of investor groups are composed of and are led by men, and investment committees are mostly male-dominated. Only 2% of the angel investors are women.
  
  • To overcome such unconscious biases, at least one or more women investors can be included in the investment group.
• Role of Government: Most of the women entrepreneurs are of the opinion that because of lack of training, they are not able to survive in the market. The government should conduct frequent training programmes for new production techniques, sales techniques, etc. and make it compulsory for women entrepreneurs.