Women Entrepreneurship (Chap 3)

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Chapter ± 3

Women Entrepreneurs and

Rural Entrepreneurship

by Arora & Sood



Women Entrepreneurs

Women entrepreneurs are keyplayers in any developing countryparticularly in terms of their

contribution to economicdevelopment. In recent years, evenamong the developed countries likeUSA and Canada, Women¶s role interms of their share in small businesshas been increasing. The facts of astudy: Conducted by IIT Delhi are:



i. Women own one-third of small businessin USA & Canada.

ii. Britain has seen an increase of over three times of women in workforce thanthat of men since 1980s.

iii. Women make for 40 percent of total work

force in Asian countries.iv. In China, women outnumber men by at

least two times when it comes to startinga business

v. In Japan, the percentage of womenentrepreneurs increased from 2.4% in1980 to 5.2% in 1995



Problems of Women Entrepreneurs

1. Patriarchal Society: Entrepreneurship has

been traditionally seen as a male

preserve and idea of taking up

entrepreneurial activities is considered asa distant dream. Any deviation from the

norm is frowned up and if possible,

immediately curbed. Women also have to

face role conflict as soon as they initiateany entrepreneurial activity.



2. Marketing Problems: Womenentrepreneurs continuously face the

problems in marketing their products. It isone of the core problems as this area ismainly dominated by males and evenwomen with adequate experience fail tomake a dent.

For marketing the products women haveto be at the mercy of middlemen whopocket the chunk of profit. Although the

middlemen exploit the womenentrepreneurs, the elimination of middlemen is difficult, because it involvesa lot of running about. Womenentrepreneurs also find it difficult to

capture the market and make their roducts o ular.



3. Financial Problems: Obtaining thesupports of bankers, managing theworking capital, lack of creditresources are the problems which stillremain in the males domain. Women

are yet to make significant mark inquantitative terms. Marketing andfinancial problems are such obstacleswhere even training doesn¶t

significantly help the women.



5. Credit facilities: Though women constituteabout large percentage of population, the

percentage of small scale enterprise wherewomen own very small percentage of share capital. Women are often deniedcredit by bankers on the ground of lack of collateral security. Therefore, women¶s

access to risk capital is limited.

Example: Grameen Banks, Brac, Proshika, Asa¶s microcredit facilities has been a good

deal of self employment programme.



6. Heavy competition: Many of the women

enterprises have imperfect organizationalset up. But they have to face severecompetition from organized industries.

7. High cost of production: undermines theefficiency and stands in the way of development and expansion of women¶senterprises. Government assistance in theform of grant and subsidies to some extentenables them to tide over difficultsituations. Other than these, womenentrepreneurs also face the problems of labor, human resources, infrastructure,legal formalities, overload of work, lack of

family support, mistrust etc.



³When women moves forward, thefamily moves, the village moves and the nation moves.´ is rightly said byPandit Jawahar Lal Nehru.Employment gives status andeconomic independence to women

leading to an empowered women.

Women set up an enterprise due toeconomic and non-economic reasonsas well. Various reasons can be dueto motivational factors and facilitating factors.



Motivational Factors

Economic necessity

independence

education and qualification

employment generation

success stories of friends & relatives

family occupation

Govt. policies and programmesrole models to others

self identity and social status



Facilitating Factors

Adequate financial facilities

innovative thinking

Co-operation of familySupport of family members

network of contacts



Features of Rural Industry

Agriculture and rural development arethe ultimate goal of our economy. Asfar as meaning of rural

industrialization is concerned, thereare conceptual difficulties in definingas such. However, it is generallytaken as a group of traditionalindustries like handloom, khadi,handicraft, pottery, Bamboo madestuffs etc.



A Rural industry has following features:

a) very low investmentb) use of traditional skills

c) products are either essential mass

consumer goods or handicrafts;

d) use of locally available raw-materials

e) cater to limited markets

f) products are becoming popular in foreign

markets for their unique nature



Some Village industries

Mineral based industry i.e. cottage potteryindustry, slate & slate pencil making, manufactureof bangles etc.

Forest based industry i.e. hand made paper,

manufacture of katha, cottage match industry,agarbatties etc.

Agro based food industry. it includes, honey,manufacture of cane gur, nuts etc.

Engineering and non-conventional energy includescarpentry, household aluminium utensils, gobar gas from cow dung and other waste products.Textile industry includes batik work, toys, and dollmaking etc.



Problems in growth of Rural

Entrepreneurship

a. Lack of infrastructural facilities

b. Non-supportive attitude of financial institutionswhich works more on papers that its delay oftendisappoints the entrepreneurs

c. lack of technical know-howd. lack of communication facilities and market

information

e. lack of warehousing facilities

f. banks do provide concessional loans but their

rules are very rigidg. lack of quality management

Conclusion: Village & small industries is under athreat of extinction. Unless the rural industry ismodernised, it has to face its closure sooner or

later due to increasing competition.

Women Entrepreneurship (Chap 3)

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