NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, our economy has been severely impacted and as physical distancing is the norm, the digital world has come to our rescue and the challenges and opportunities for women in the digital age are growing.

Women entrepreneurship has been identified as an important catalyst for economic growth. However, despite industrialization, economic growth, and improvement in social indicators, participation of women in the workforce remains low in India. As per the World Bank report (2018), India can boost its growth by 1.5% if around 50% of the women population actively participates in the labour force. The current socio-economic climate has also witnessed a significant growth of entrepreneurs in India. Literacy, education and awareness have played a pivotal role in creating an enabling environment for entrepreneurship. However, only 14% of them are women. While many Indian women have ambitions towards entrepreneurship, it is, often, difficult for them to set up a business, scale-up and sustain. According to a 2018 survey report by Mastercard, India has been found to be in a group of countries where women business owners struggle with less favorable conditions like low literacy rates, lack of support from family, cultural biases, lack in resources such as finances, capital, training and lack of mentoring around developing a go-to market strategy.

Photo courtesy of Meena Kadri.