Entrepreneurship Policies through a Gender Lens

India

By Roshni Narendran, University of Tasmania

Background

As in most economies, women in India women are less active in entrepreneurship than men. Out of 458.5 million entrepreneurs in 2019, only 8.1 million are women (Startup India, 2019) and they employ 13.5 million people (Government of India, 2020). The majority of women-owned enterprises operate in the Agriculture, Manufacturing and Retail sectors (Startup India, 2019), and are under-represented in the Engineering and Construction sectors (OECD, 2017).

The National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, 2015) has made significant contributions to promoting entrepreneurship, including supporting women entrepreneurs. A core policy objective is “to empower the individual, by enabling her/him to realise their full potential through a process of lifelong learning where competencies are accumulated via instruments such as credible certifications, credit accumulation and transfer” (p. 11). While the policy is not gender specific, it includes a section on women’s entrepreneurship that refers to “women”, “female” and “gender”, but does not categorise women as a marginalised group. The report also focuses on caste-based groups.1 While the policy advances actions targeted at the population of small- and medium-sized enterprises, it recommends the provision of gender mainstream training to increase women’s participation in the workforce and entrepreneurship, and enhanced access to credit. Actions targeted at women entrepreneurs include business awards, networks and mentors (2017-18 Annual Report of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship).

The Indian government has developed dedicated programmes to support women entrepreneurs, such as Speed Mentoring, Cent Kalyani Scheme (loan up to INR 1 million), Women Entrepreneurship Platform (an online forum to motivate women to start businesses, foster entrepreneurial activities and provide hands-on supports to establish and scale a business), Iccha Shakti to motivate start-up, and Gyaan Shakti to provide knowledge and ecosystem support to women entrepreneurs (see https://wep.gov.in).

The under-representation of women in entrepreneurship highlights important gaps within policy and programming. One gap is the failure to address the safety of women entrepreneurs.

Policy issue: Women entrepreneurs’ personal safety

Entrepreneurship policy in India focuses mainly on skill development through training and education. Most policies stress the need to provide women with the skills required to engage in industries or sectors not traditionally embraced by women. There is an emphasis on the need to increase gender sensitivity, which in turn, encourages women to actively participate in the workforce. While the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship refers to “gender sensitivity” in the workplace, the policy does not clearly define the term. The term appears to draw attention to the gap in labour force participation between genders. The term also references “gender sensitive training environment” (p. 33) yet a clear definition is not provided. It can be assumed that the training includes programmes to ensure gender equality. The lack of clarity highlights particular aspects of the workplace of women entrepreneurs which pose risks, such as harassment. This deters women’s entrepreneurship and hinders the development of women-led businesses.

Unequal treatment of women and increasing harassment discourage many women from becoming entrepreneurs. India is a patriarchal society, where cultural norms dictate women’s social roles and imply hierarchical relations between men and women (Nieder, Muck and Kärtner, 2019). These, in turn, lead to increased crimes against women (Ministry of Home Affairs, 2016; Nigam, 2017). In India, women’s safety is a major concern, with sexual harassment in public places posing a problem for women who travel (Bharucha and Khatri, 2018). Women entrepreneurs need to travel to obtain relevant licenses, and to acquire customers, funds and inventory. Given concerns about safety and security, including the need to circumvent harassment in public places, questions arise about how women entrepreneurs can take advantage of skill development training programmes.

These circumstances render many entrepreneurship policies and programmes redundant. For example, a survey of 550 experts finds that India is one of the most dangerous nations for sexual violence against women (Dewan, 2018). Figures from the National Crime Records Bureau show an increase in crime against women, with more than 41 000 such crimes reported in 2016 (Ministry of Home Affairs, 2016); 2.8 cases of rape are reported every hour in India (Ministry of Home Affairs, 2016). There has been a 54% increase in reported sexual harassment cases within four years (Watts, 2019). Over the years, there has been little change in sexual violence against women. Negotiating a new identity for women remains an impossible task (Joy, Belk and Bhardwaj, 2015). Moreover, the implementation of laws against sexual violence and harassment is uneven. It is reported that some Indian authorities abase complaints of sexual harassment from women who wear revealing outfits or approach officers without first calling on a family member to be present (Bhattacharyya, 2015). While the government, particularly the National Commission for Women, has introduced programmes to help address women’s safety, harassment against women has a detrimental impact on women’s entrepreneurship. This constraint needs to be an important component of all entrepreneurship policies.

Another obstacle is the widely-held perception that entrepreneurship is not an activity that is suitable for women. Many women entrepreneurs are subjected to social disapproval when engaging in business activities within male-dominated industries. Disapproval is pronounced based on one’s religion, level of education or caste (a socially-constructed prenominal segregation within society) (Jaspal, 2011). Entrepreneurship policies must consider cultural factors and associated discriminations.

Conclusions and recommendations

While current policy and related programmes have advanced promising initiatives to enhance entrepreneurial activity, the social issues of gender discrimination and safety have not been addressed. Policy initiatives will become redundant if they fail to address the embedded discrimination against women. Women have reported being harassed by family and non-family members. Harassment prevents many women from pursuing entrepreneurial activities. This could be the reason why, in India, one of the world’s most populated countries, only 14% of women chose to become entrepreneurs. And despite the existence of agencies to address harassment against women, harassment issues need to be embedded in policies, such as the National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. The following recommendations are offered to policy makers seeking to enhance women’s participation in entrepreneurship.

Recommendations for India

• Address negative attitudes towards women entrepreneurs in communication campaigns and promote programmes empowering women to be entrepreneurial.

• Ensure that gendered entrepreneurship policies are developed in a cohesive manner and offer various supports in packages (e.g. entrepreneurship skills coupled with start-up financing).

• Enhance the safety and security of women in India to help them to engage more in entrepreneurial activities in public, and provide training to run online businesses, thereby reducing opportunities for women entrepreneurs to be harassed.

References

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