A significant majority of enterprises led by women in India operate at a subsistence level, with weak access to formal finance, mentoring and skilling support, and poor market linkages. In the wake of COVID-19, these enterprises have been disproportionately affected by economic uncertainty and instability. These enterprises have also demonstrated their spirit of resilience and ability to innovate, by supporting community-building efforts and adapting to market changes. Despite these noteworthy contributions, women-led enterprises are vulnerable to economic shocks and at a greater risk of shutting down. The need of the hour is a significant thrust from policy, industry, and community microenterprises in navigating the changing socio-economic environment and building their resilience to shocks in the long-term.
On the occasion of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (November 19), we hosted a Twitter chat to discuss strategies for enhancing women’s participation in entrepreneurial activity and strengthening enterprise resilience. The chat explored strategies for addressing restrictive social norms that influence women’s participation in aspirations for entrepreneurship, improving skilling programs, and building business acumen, enabling meaningful access to technology and markets. Participants also discussed strategies for collecting better-disaggregated data and integrating a gender lens in entrepreneurship development programs and policies.
Here are the key highlights of the discussion:
1.Identifying role models from the local community and including household members in the conversation can ease sticky social constraints around women’s participation in entrepreneurial activity.
Investing in girls’ education, identifying and building up women leaders, including men and other household members in the conversation are the ways through which we can begin easing the social constraints around female lab. force participation, including entrepreneurship.
— Salonie (@SalonieM) November 19, 2020
2.Income earned from self-employment provides women greater control over their finances and improves household bargaining power, which in turn contributes to a shift in attitudes and social norms.
Access to microcredit has shown to have positive effects in integrating women into the labour force in the long run. This effect is infact driven by greater participation of women in household business activity.
— Misha Sharma (@sharmamish) November 19, 2020
Ensuring business asset ownership in the name of the women entrepreneur is a powerful strategy against restrictive social norms!
— M.P.Karthick (@KarthickMP) November 19, 2020
3.Universalising social protection and broadening access to a suite of financial services including savings, insurance, and low-cost working capital can build resilience against shocks.
So HH insurance can indirectly help protect women enterprises. Also, important to help women strengthen intra-HH decision making. Finally, ensure broader access to market (dedicated support for women-led enterprises).
— Fabrizio Valenti (@F_Valenti) November 19, 2020
Providing affordable business insurance at scale could be one of the protective measures especially for micro and nano women-led enterprises.
— M.P.Karthick (@KarthickMP) November 19, 2020
4.Combining vocational training programs with soft skills and business acumen can promote risk-taking and enable entrepreneurs to scale up.
Skilling programs should imbibe soft skills or behavioural aspects such as resilience and risk taking which has proved the winning card during the pandemic. @SatyamVyas @SalonieM what have been your experiences?
— Preethi Rao (@preethirrao) November 19, 2020
+1 to this. Also, what helps women entrepreneurs move from skill to scale is equipping them with business acumen training over and above soft skill training. With limited knowledge about markets and competition women-led business often are unable to strategically plan ahead!
— Mridulya Narasimhan (@Mridulya) November 19, 2020
5.Leveraging peer support can play an important role in improving women’s participation in business training, and in turn business activity and household income.
Leveraging peer effects is a promising area suggested by Field et. al (2016). Peers are a valuable source of informal skills+market info. In the experiment, women who attended business training with friends reported higher business volume than those who attended without friends
— Kartikeya Bhatotia (@bhatoti) November 19, 2020
#WERISEtwitterchat #WomenEntrepreneurshipDay@HebatallahADAM
Connecting women entrepreneurs in rural areas through smaller groups will be helpful to create inputs and ideas.— Jindal Centre for the Global South (JCGS) (@JCGS_JSIA) November 19, 2020
6.Mandating preferential purchase of products and services offered by women’s enterprises by public and private players can be key to stabilise demand and strengthen market linkages.
1. Increase financial investment into women-owned enterprises – low or zero interest working capital, tax holidays, payroll subsidies
2. Preferential purchase of products/services by women’s enterprises by both public and private buyers
3. Invest in capacity building, training— Salonie (@SalonieM) November 19, 2020
7.Identifying ‘digital champions’ and providing hand-holding support coupled with “nudges and reminders” at teachable moments is crucial to build trust and familiarity with new technologies.
Addressing the persistent gender gaps around women having their own bank account, having mobile phone ownerships and digital plus financial literacy will provide opportunities and widen inequities and exclusions.
— Tanwi T (@Tanwi42) November 19, 2020
Identifying champions (in and around HH) to facilitate peer-to-peer learning has shown promise and increase in tech usage
— Mridulya Narasimhan (@Mridulya) November 19, 2020
8.Simplifying onboarding processes and user interfaces can open up e-commerce opportunities for women.
4. Opening up e-commerce for women through easier onboarding processes and systems, close handholding
5. Digital inclusion – access to assets, data, training to use these tools
6. Universal social protection through full-day childcare, healthcare, insurance, basic housing— Salonie (@SalonieM) November 19, 2020
9.Disaggregated data is a critical ingredient for developing targeted policies and programs.
Broaden the pool of avenues from which data is collected, upgrade the questions being asked, ensure different sector specific queries, increase vernacular based research.
— Deepthi Ravula (@deepthiis) November 19, 2020
Some of the important indicators could be access to information, risk behaviors and lastly examine laws and ways it affects opportunities and incentives to work for both men and women
— Ria Dutta (@Riadutta28) November 19, 2020
10.Beyond disaggregated data, incorporating a gender lens to theories of change and data analysis is crucial to understand pathways of impact.
Gender analysis must move beyond gender-disaggregated data. We need concerted efforts to ensure ab initio, our theory of change and analysis plan incorporates a gender lens.#WERISETwitterchat #WomensEntrepreneurshipDay
— Mridulya Narasimhan (@Mridulya) November 19, 2020
Follow the entire discussion thread here –#WERISEtwitterchat.Learn more about the impact of COVID-19 on women-led businesses, and explore our recommendations for strategies to encourage women entrepreneurs here. Based on research undertaken by LEAD and IWWAGE, this report presents evidence on barriers impeding the growth of women entrepreneurs and highlights stories of resilience amid uncertainty.
About the Author
Diksha Singh leads the learning and communications portfolio at LEAD. She has more than a decade of experience in research and outreach. Diksha has a Master’s in Economics from the University of Mumbai. She enjoys cycling, reading, and writing when she is not chasing her toddler around.