Women entrepreneurship – An emerging trend for women empowerment

The term “Women Entrepreneurship” defines 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. Entrepreneurship is the state of mind which every woman has in her but has not been capitalized in India in way in which it should be. Due to change in environment, now people are more comfortable to accept leading role of women in our society, though there are some exceptions.

As said by Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru- “When women move forward, the family moves, the village moves and the nation moves”, therefore social and economic development of women is necessary for overall economic development and empowerment of women of any society or a country. The Self Help Groups (SHGs) is considered to be institutional innovation that fosters empowerment of economically and socially deprived women. The members of SHGs are involved in Micro Entrepreneurships. Through that, they are becoming economically independent and providing employment opportunities to others. As our increasing dependency on service sector has created many entrepreneurial opportunities especially for women where they can excel their skills with maintaining balance in their life. This paper deals with empowerment of Indian women through entrepreneurship, advantages entrepreneurship among the women and attempts to identify the opportunities and challenges faced by women entrepreneurs. This paper also tries to identify various reasons for slow progress of women entrepreneurs in India and suggestions for the growth of women entrepreneurs in India.