The Women-Owned Enterprises in India: Condition, Performance and Challenges

The aim of this paper is to investigate the condition of the Women-owned micro and small-scale enterprises, their performances and the challenges faced by the women owner in the Indian context. The condition of the overall Women-owned micro and small-scale enterprise has portrayed by the simple table and diagram. In addition, we have used a simple multivariate regression model to understand the performance difference of these enterprises across Sector using the NSSO 73rd round microdata. The study finds that the proportion of women-owned enterprises are significantly low. Interestingly, in both the sectors (i.e. Rural & Urban), Women-owned Enterprises are mostly operated as Own-account segment (OAE) within the household premises. The Rural Sector is much isolated in terms of the enterprise’s performance. Some major problems like Demand shortage, non-recovery of financial dues, Non-availability of Credit, shortage of Raw materials etc. are facing by the Women owners during their operation.