Women

Women Run Fewer Than 13% Of India's Small Businesses. Here's Why

Shalini Singh
Feb 27, 2021
Globally, India ranks third among countries reporting gender gaps in business—only 33% of the early-stage entrepreneurs in India are women
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Sarita Devi, 40, a vegetable vendor in south Delhi,
knows nothing about government schemes such as Mudra that could have given her access to a small loan to sustain her micro business in the pandemic
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Only 17% of women entrepreneurs
interviewed in an August 2019 survey were aware of the financial schemes rolled out by the government or financial institutions
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Women entrepreneurs who apply for loans face more than twice the number of rejections (19%) than men (8%)
and 70% of the total finance requirement of women entrepreneurs in the country is unmet
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The latest in our Women@Work series, this is part one of our story on women entrepreneurs of India
Where we dive deep into women facing difficulties in access to finance