India Needs To Focus on Women Entrepreneurs For Job Growth

Kaniza Garar
IndiGlobal Media Bureau 

For women entrepreneurship to grow in India it is important to create an enabling ecosystem integrated with implementation and impact assessment. Of the 27,000 start-ups in India there are only 5 percent women start-ups. There are 136 unciorn start-ups but only five are female.

What is the reason for this gap?

Getting women entrepreneurs into the mainstream will require filling the gaps in the existing government schemes. The incentives which are being given by the Central and State governments are spread across different departments, ministries and agencies.

There is a need for a focused approach which will require that women start-ups get the attention and also the platform for showcasing their skills, products and trade.

In a study carried out by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) it has been noted that to encourage women entrepreneurs government must expand their trade and markets internationally.

The key factors noted are:

• International trade contributes to positive outcomes for women and promotes gender equality.
• Women-owned businesses that export are more than 3.5 times productive than Women-owned businesses that do not export.
• Women entrepreneurs are more likely to employ women in comparison to Men-owned and managed companies.
• The average pay by exporting Women-owned businesses is approximately 1.6 times higher than the average pay at non-exporting Women-owned businesses.

The International Trade Centre (ITC)’s 2015 publication Unlocking Markets for Women to Trade finds that just around 20 percent of exporting firms in developing countries are led by women entrepreneurs; and that fewer women export and import in general.

This could also help India whose women are now half of the existing population. The recent National Family Health Survey 2019-21 shows that India has 1020 females per 1000 males.

With women constituting almost half of the population, empowering women and promoting gender equality is important for India. According to the report Powering the Economy with Her, a focused effort on women entrepreneurs will increase direct employment by 50 million by 2030.

There is also an indication that indirect and induced employment will increase by another 100 million. This will bridge nearly 25 percent of the jobs required in the working-age population in 2030.

India needs to include women entrepreneurs as important stakeholders in domestic trade. There is also a need for one lead platform to bring all women entrepreneurs together within the country so that their consolidated efforts can be properly tabulated and taken forward.

With gender equality considerations gaining traction in trade it is important to take these steps to give the much-required boost for women entrepreneurs in India.