Shodh, Samiksha aur Mulyankan (International Research Journal)ISSN-0974-2832 Vol. II, Issue-9-10 (Oct.-Nov.

-2009)

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Women Entrepreneurship In India

(Problems, Solutions & Future Prospects of Development)
Research PaperCommerce & Management
Entrepreneurship Meaning:-The origin of the basic word Entrepreneurship is from a French word Entreprendre, where it cradled and originally meant to designate an organizer of certain musical or other entertainments. The Oxford English Dictionary (of 1897) defines the term Entrepreneur in similar way as the director or a manager of a public musical institution, one who gets-up entertainment arranged , especially musical performance. Initially in the early 16th century, it was applied to those who were engaged in military expeditions. In 17th century. It was extended to cover civil engineering activities such as construction and fortification. Since then, the term Entrepreneur is used in various ways and various views. These views are broadly classified into three groups namely:- Risk-Bearer Organizer Innovator Thus, a person who assumes and bears all types of risks involved in an enterprise, who organizes the various inputs or factors of production and who innovates news ideas, concepts, strategies and methodology in business from time to time is known as Entrepreneur. Women Entrepreneurship:- When we speak about the term Women Entrepreneurship we mean, an act of business ownership and business creation that empowers women economically, increases their economic strength as well as position in society. Hence women-entrepreneurs have been making a considerable impact in all most all the segments of the economy which is more than 25% of all kinds of business. In India Entrepreneurship is very limited amongst women especially in the formal sector, which is less than 5% of all the business. Objectives/ Purpose of Study:- The main purpose or objective of study of women entrepreneurship is as follows: a) To exhibit the encouraging and discouraging factors in an enterprise. b) Identification and analysis of all the shortcomings encountered by women in setting and establishing an industrial enterprise. c) To provide solutions to the various problems faced by the women entrepreneur group. Methodology of Study:- For methodology an extensive literature review of secondary data from various sources has

* Dr. Sunil Deshpande **Ms. Sunita Sethi

been held as related to the stated objectives of the study as well as research study on internet survey basis. Women Entrepreneurship Role in Todays Society :The emergence of entrepreneurs in a society depends to a great extent on economic, social, religious, cultural and psychological factors prevailing in the society. In many of the advanced countries of the world there is a phenomenal increase in the number of self-employed women after the world war. In U.S women own 25% of all business, even though there sales on an average are less than 2/5th of those of other small business groups. In Canada, 1/3rd of small business are owned by women and in France, it is 1/5th. In U.K., since 1980, the number of self-employed women has increased 3 times as fast as the number of self employed men. They have made their mark in business for the following reasons highlighted below:- 1) They want to assume new and fresh challenges and opportunities for self-fulfillment. 2) They want to prove their personalities in an innovative, daring and competitive jobs. 3) They want to undertake changes to control the balance between their families responsibly and business obligations. Women Entrepreneurs in India:- Two main stream of thoughts have influenced the promotion of women entrepreneurship in India by the government as well as by various other agencies. The first stream is employment centered. It has been argued that considering their weaker bargaining power in the market as well as society, women should be given higher priority in various entrepreneurial schemes. The second most stream of thought relates to the argument for autonomy of women. There are three broad stages for this- I. Conceptualization II. Analysis of internal aspects III. Analysis of external aspects An integrated view of these aspects are in the form of chart below:Entrepreneurial Background Labour Market

backward Linkages Woman's Industry Public Policy

Forward Linkages

* Asstt.Proff, Department of Commerce & Management, G.S. College, Jabalpur ** Asstt. Proff, Department of Commerce, M.G.M.M Jabalpur

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Internal Aspects:- The motion of women industry itself has to be defined and further sub-divided. It is not functionally enough to state that it means all enterprises, run by women and are having more than 80% women employees. More important aspects are the background of the entrepreneur as well as the question, who the entrepreneur and his workers are. External Aspects:- Such group of factors are important for planning of women industry features, forward and backward linkages as well as the government policies and regulations that play an important role in determining the position of these enterprises in the economic structure. It takes care of development policy in relation for up-liftment of womens development and takes care for providing an economic secured environment for all women entrepreneur group. Position Status of Women Entrepreneurs:- Out of the total 940.48 million people in India, in the 1990s female comprise of 437.10 million representing 46.5 % of the total population. There are 126.48 million women work-force( representing 28.9% of the female population ) but as per the 1991 census only 185900 women accounting for only 4.5% of total self-employed persons in the country were recorded. Majority of them are engaged in the un-organized sector like agriculture , agro-based industries, handicrafts, handloom and cottage based industries. Participation of women as industrial entrepreneurs, however is comparatively a recent phenomenon commencing from 70s era onwards. There were more than 2,95,680 women entrepreneurs claiming 11.2 % of total 2.64 million entrepreneurs in India, during 1995-96. This is almost double the percentage of women (5.2%) among the total population of self employed during 1981. On this, a majority were concentrated in low-paid, low-skilled, low-technology and low-productivity jobs in the rural and un-organized sector. Almost 79.4 million women workers were in the rural areas as against only 10% (86 million) in the urban areas. Only 2.5 million women workers were in the organized sector and a small percentage of 12.4 % were totalemployed. During the 8th, 5 year planning period the number of SSIs expected to rise from 1.7 million to 2.5 million adding 0.8 million in the 5 year period or 1.60 lakh every year. The rough estimate showed that amongst the SSI entrepreneurs approx 9 % were women entrepreneurs. Their participation, however is increasing. Thus considering the trend women participation in another 5 years was more 20% more, raising the number of women entrepreneurs to about 5,00,000. Therefore one could aim at developing atleast 3,50,000 women entrepreneurs during the 8th , 5 year planning period .through training and other developmental efforts. The present rate of 30% success in EDP training was likely to go up-to 45% with growing experience and im-

proved techniques of training and follow-up. Based on this assumption for getting 3.5 lakh women entrepreneurs it was necessary to train and support about 7.78 lakh entrepreneurs, during the aforesaid period. As per the 2001 census report, there are 22.73% of women workers of the total working population including formal as well as informal sector. In the era of L.P.G (Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization) the Indian women entrepreneurs are very fast entering the non-traditional sectors, which indeed is in response to their grater awareness. Work participation of Indian women is 22% as per 1991 census and triple in rural areas around 27% and in urban areas 9%, thus the role and involvement of women entrepreneurs in rural sector is tremendously enhancing, the literacy levels increased ratio is also a significant factor of this positive trend in the field of entrepreneurship. To understand more specifically following figures are indicated ( taken from various internet sources) which indicate some facts and figure. For example Figure 1, indicates the level of men and women participating in the field of entrepreneurship. As it can be clearly noticed from the graph that the number of male participation per thousand count in population is significantly more globally than the female group, starting from year 1996-97 till year 2007-08. Likewise when we see the participation of women at the various occupational positions we can notice that women have a higher percentage from 75-78.5% in administrative role /positions, second highest in service sector ranging from 59.9-61.1% and similarly in the various sectors of the economy which can be seen from Figure 2. Also, Figure 3 indicates women participation in the various sectors of industries such as information sector, ship-building, painting and glass making, manufacture of organic and in-organic compounds, smelting, alloying, refining, metallic and lead battery industry etc. As we can see further, Figure 4 indicates the level of literacy rates of females in overall India as well as in the state of Kerala, right from the year 1951-2001 and there is a rising trend from 7.93% in the initial year 1951 to 54.16 % in the year 2001 in the state of Kerala and when we notice all India level again a growing trend from 36.43% in the initial year 1951 to as high as 87.86% in the year 2001. So with the spread of more and more knowledge there is a general awareness been generated amongst people to encourage the policy of Female-Literacy. Finally moving on to next Figure 5, it shows the amount of compensation given to men and women designated as Product Managers at the various enterprise at the global level. Noticing the graph it clearly depicts that men are been paid more for their innovation, ideation, creative skills, enterprising attitude as compared to women which clearly need to be analyzed and strictly needs to be looked upon.

Shodh, Samiksha aur Mulyankan (International Research Journal)ISSN-0974-2832 Vol. II, Issue-9-10 (Oct.-Nov.-2009)

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Figure 1:-

Figure 5:-

Male/Female participation in the field of enterprise on a global level. Figure 2:-

Figure 3:-

Figure 4:-

Female literacy rates in India and Kerala as well

Total Compensation to men and women Problems Associated With Women Entrepreneurs :- Basically all women entrepreneurs almost suffer from two main category of problems, such problems can be designated as follows:- 1) Specific Problems 2) General Problems. The first category of problems affect women specifically in their smooth operations of enterprise ,while the other category of problems have a general or over-all affect on the enterprises owned by such group pf women entrepreneurs. Over-all these problems can be summed up as under:Problem of Finances arrangement:- Finance is said to be the life blood of every business undertaking, be it large or medium or small scale enterprise. Usually women entrepreneurs face the problems of shortage of finance on two important grounds. Firstly, women do not generally have property on their own names to use that as collateral securities for obtaining loans/funds from banks and other financial institutions. Thus their access to external sources is very limited .Secondly, the banks also consider women less credit worthy and discourage women borrowers on the belief that they cannot repay back the amount of loans taken by them. Scarcity of raw materials required for productive capacities:- They have to even face the problems of scarcity of raw-materials and necessary inputs. On the top of this, is the high prices of raw materials, on one hand and getting raw materials at minimum discount rates is the other. Cut-throat competition with other group of men and established self-sufficient entrepreneurs:- Women entrepreneurs do not have a proper organizational set-up to pump in a lot of money for canvassing and advertisements. Thus they have to face a stiff competition with the men entrepreneurs who easily involve in the promotion and development area and carry out easy marketing of their products with both the organized sector and their male counterparts. Such a competition ultimately results in the liquidation of women entrepreneurs. Limited mobility factor in case of women entrepre-

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neurs:- Unlike men, women mobility in India is highly limited due to many factors/reasons. A single women asking for room is still looked with suspicion. Cumbersome exercise involved in starting with an enterprise coupled with officials humiliating attitude towards women compels them to give up their spirit of surviving in enterprise altogether. Family responsibilities, ties as well as commitments:In India, mainly a womans duty is to look after her children and manage the other members of the family. Man plays a secondary role only. Incase of married women she has to strike a fine balance between her business and family. Her total involvement in family leaves little or almost no time or energy to be diverted for the business activities. Support and approval of husbands seems to be necessary condition for women entry into business. Accordingly, the educational level and family background of husbands also influences women participation in the field of enterprise. Lack of education and prevalent levels of illiteracy amongst women:- In India, around 3/5th (60%) of women are still illiterate. Illiteracy is the root cause of socio-economic barriers or hurdles. Due to lack of education and that to qualitative education, women are not aware of business, technology and market knowledge. Also lack of education causes low achievement motivation amongst women. Thus lack of education creates problems before women to set up competitive enterprises. Domination by male and ideology of male dominated society:- Male chauvinism is still prevalent in many parts of the country yet. The constitution of India speaks about the equality between both the sexes, i.e. men and women. But in practice, women are looked upon as abla i.e. weak in all respects. Thus women suffer from a number of problems , in a nutshell in a male dominated society, women are not treated equal to men. This in turn, serves as a barrier to womans entry into business. Lesser risk and uncertainty bearing attitude:Women in India lead a protected life. They are even less educated and economically not stable neither self-depended. All these factors reduce their ability to bear risks and uncertainties involved in a business unit, which is the most important criteria of every business activity. Lack of self-confidence and optimistic attitude amongst women :- Today all the women are suffering from one major problem of lack of self-confidence, will-power, strong mental outlook, optimism etc. They always fear from committing mistakes while doing their piece of work, more over there is limited initiative of taking risk and bearing uncertainty in them. Thus all these psychological factors often obstructs their path of achieving success in the area of enterprise. Old and outdated social outlook to stop women

from entering in the field of entrepreneurship:- Also one of the dominant reason for their failure is the attitude of society people towards their modern business prospects and developing attitude. Women nowadays have low risk taking ability because of the number of questions put forward by the conservative society people. Thus they are under a social pressure which restrains them to prosper and achieve success in the field of entrepreneurship. Absence of proper support and back-up for women by their own family members and the outside world people:- Many a times their own family members are not supporting and cooperating as well as having encouraging attitude to dare to enter into the entrepreneurship field. They are always making many pessimistic feelings to be aroused in their minds and making them feel that family and not business is a place meant for them. Due to such limited scope of help and cooperation from family and other people, they drop the idea of excelling in the enterprise field. Apart from the above discussed problems there may occur other series of serious problems faced by women entrepreneurs are improper infrastructural facilities, high cost of production, attitude of people of society towards the women modern business outlook, low needs of achievement and socio-economic constraints often puts women behind in the field of enterprise. Solutions for solving the above discussed problems:On the basis of the above mentioned problems faced by women entrepreneurs and various other problems too, there is a provision of a number of solution measures to overcome the aforesaid problems. Such solutions or remedies can be well understood as under:- There should be a continuous attempt to inspire, encourage, motivate and cooperate women entrepreneurs. Attempts should be there to enhance the standards of education of women in general as well making effective provisions for their training, practical experience and personality development programmes, to improvise their over-all personality standards. Attempts to establish for them proper training institutes for enhancing their level of work-knowledge, skills, risk-taking abilities, enhancing their capabilities. Attempts to bring about a society attitude change, generation of awareness and consciousness on the policy of self-development of women entrepreneurs. Attempts by various NGOs and government organizations to spread information about policies, plans and strategies on the development of women in the field of industry, trade and commerce. Establishing various policies to offer easy finance schemes for economically strengthening the position of women. Forming a cooperative association of women entrepreneurs to mobilize resources and pooling capital funds, in order to help the women in the field of industry, trade and commerce. Offering seed capital, up-liftment schemes, women entrepreneurs

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fund etc. to encourage them economically. To extend confessional rates facilities and schemes for women entrepreneurs to prosper in the field of enterprise. To establish all India forum to discuss the problems, grievances, issues, and filing complaints against constraints or shortcomings towards the economic progress path of women entrepreneurs and giving suitable decisions in the favour of women entrepreneurs and taking strict stand against the policies or strategies that obstruct the path of economic development of such group of women entrepreneurs. Thus by adopting the following aforesaid measures in letter and spirit the problems associated with women can be solved. Future Prospects of Development of Women Entrepreneurs:- If we see the present business and entrepreneurship trend throughout the world, we can notice that the percentage or ratio of women entrepreneurs is growing tremendously. This is a good indicator as if the aforesaid condition prevails through a long period of time the number of women entrepreneurs will just double and even in certain sectors of economy it may triple in the coming 5-7 years. The emergence as well as development of women entrepreneurs is quite visible in India and their over-all contribution to Indian economy is also very significant. The occupational structure and the enterprises are undergoing a drastic change. IT and the Internet revolutionize the very method of doing business. New types of enterprises are created, and there are new requirements as regards the organization of work, qualifications and management. For example in Denmark, Entrepreneurial culture is undergoing a positive development. The Government wants this trend to continue. Therefore the Governments industrial policy strategy .dk 21 contains a series of political initiatives to foster the entrepreneurial culture and to improve the framework of provisions for all entrepreneurs, especially the women group of entrepreneurs. Several of the initiatives are especially useful for women entrepreneurs improvement of the entrepreneurial culture, regional contact points and entrepreneur networks as well as more ready access to financing, especially to small loans. These initiatives are to be further adjusted to appeal to women entrepreneurs. All this is providing immense confidence in the women entrepreneurs and enabling them to exercise their skills, risk taking abilities, uncertainty bearing attitude while working in an enterprise. To inspire confidence and to sell ones idea is the policy

nowadays being adopted by women entrepreneurs. Above all, women want competent counseling in various fields: such as namely: financing, liquidity, budgeting, etc. Women entrepreneurs also want more appreciation of their idea on the part of the banks. Many say, however, that they themselves must also be better at selling their idea. More-over with increasing government and non-government and other financial institutions assistance for various women entrepreneurs within the economy there can be significant increase brought about in the growth of women entrepreneurship process. Still efforts are being made to coordinate with the enterprise activities of women and providing them utmost financial, morale, psychological support by various institutions working within the economy and world-wide. Conclusion :- It can be said that today we are in a better position wherein women participation in the field of entrepreneurship is increasing at a considerable rate, efforts are being taken at the economy as well as global level to enhance womans involvement in the enterprise sector. This is mainly because of attitude change, diverted conservative mindset of society to modern one, daring and risk-taking abilities of women, support and cooperation by society members, changes and relaxations in government policies, granting various up-liftment schemes to women entrepreneurs etc. Thus, what else is required is to continue with the above changed trend, emphasizing on educating women strata of population, spreading awareness and consciousness amongst women to outshine in the enterprise field, making them realize their strengths, and important position in the society and the great contribution they can make for their industry as well as the entire economy. For this many NGOs should also come forward to extend their support services in the form of pooling financial resources for helping them and spreading education amongst various category of people of the society to encourage womans in their families to represent themselves in the entrepreneurship sector and earn a good name, reputation, financial status, and goodwill in the field of industry, trade and commerce. If every citizen works with such an attitude towards respecting the important position occupied by women in society and understanding their vital role in the modern business field too, then very soon we can pre-estimate our chances of out beating our own conservative and rigid thought process which is the biggest barrier in our countrys development process. We can promise ourselves and make a sincere commitment of contributing to the field of women entrepreneurship at individual level which un-doubtedly bring drastic positive change in growth and development of women entrepreneurship at country and even at a global level.

R E F E R E N C E
1. Women Entrepreneurship and Economic Development By Sanjay Tiwari, Anshuja Tiwari. Publisher : Sarup and Sons 2. Entrepreneurship Development By S.S Khanka. S. Chand & Company Limited . (Ram Nagar, New Delhi-110055). 3. Dynamics of entrepreneurial development and management By Vasant Desai. Himalaya Publishing House. 4. Indian Entrepreneurship (Theory and Practice)- By Dr. D.D. Sharma & Dr. S.K. Dhameja Abhishek Publications Chandigarh-17 (India) 5. Internet related search topics- Danish Agency for Trade and Industry October 2000, Electronic edition by Schultz Grafisk A/S.