Authors: Rachana Pemaram Choudhary, Deep G Murzello
Abstract: In India, women entrepreneurship has become a very important factor in ensuring inclusive economic growth by creating employment, innovation, reducing poverty and social empowerment. Trends of the last 20 years show that India has seen a consistent number of women-owned businesses in micro, small, and medium businesses with the help of policy effort, financial inclusion programs, online platforms, and shifted socio-cultural norms. Although this has progressed, women entrepreneurs still experience structural inequalities and constraints like lack of access to finance, social norms, skill disparity, and market barriers and unequal care responsibilities. The paper presents the extensive overview of the trends of women entrepreneurship in India, summarizing the findings of the government reports, international agencies, and peer-reviewed books. The research question underpins the study on the basis of descriptive and analytical research design by secondary data to investigate trends in growth, concentration of sector, locality and differences and facilitating ecosystems and restraints of women entrepreneurs. A conceptual framework that includes the connection of policy support, financial access, the inclusion of digital to human capital, and the impact of entrepreneurship is also included in the paper. The result of the research suggests that institutional assistance based on policy has increased still with some irregularities in the distribution of results across regions and social classes. The paper does end by stating policy implications and future research directions in reinforcing women entrepreneurial ecosystems in India.
