Women entrepreneurs can create 170 mn jobs

A joint report titled ‘Women Entrepreneurship in India – Powering the economy with her’ by Bain & Company and Google has revealed that women in entrepreneurship can generate transformational employment in India with 150–170 million job opportunities. This is about more than 25% of the new jobs required for the entire working age population by 2030.

The study identifies six dominant segments of female entrepreneurs and estimates India to have 13.5–15.7 million enterprises owned by women, representing nearly 20% of all enterprises today. It observed, however, in quite a few instances, women are named owners for financial and administrative reasons with no active role to play which defeats the spirit of true entrepreneurship. “In spite of India’s economic progress in the last decade, women’s participation in the labour force has declined and is expected to be under pressure due to labour trends, technological disruption and constraining social barriers,” said Megha Chawla, one of the lead authors of the report. She underpins that unlocking entrepreneurship among women in India will provide an unprecedented opportunity to change the country’s economic and social trajectory and its women for future generations.