Fact sheet: Women entrepreneurs in India -Governance Now

Fact sheet: Women entrepreneurs in India

There are over eight million women entrepreneurs in India, with Tamil Nadu having the highest share

GN Bureau | April 5, 2016

#Tamil Nadu #Sixth Economic Census #Entrepreneurs #Women

The sixth economic census, released by ministry of statistics and programme implementation, presents a worrisome picture of the status of women entrepreneurs in the country.

The survey shows that women constitute only 13.76% of the total entrepreneurs, i.e., 8.05 million out of the 58.5 million entrepreneurs.

These establishments in total, owned by females, provide employment to 13.45 million people.

Another revelation is that out of these entrepreneurs, 2.76 million women (34.3% of the total entrepreneurs) work in agriculture sector whereas 5.29 million females (65.7% of the total entrepreneurs) work in non-agricultural sectors.

In the agriculture, livestock dominates (with a share of 31.6 %) among all other farming activities.

Among the non-agricultural activities owned by women entrepreneurs, manufacturing and retail trade are dominant ones with corresponding percentages being 29.8% and 17.8% respectively.

Out of the total establishments under women entrepreneurs, percentage share of various social and religious groups OBC: 40.60%, SC: 12.18%, ST: 6.97% and Others (40.25%); Hindus: 65.6%, Muslim: 12.84% and Christian: 5.2%.

Among the states, the largest share in number of establishments under women entrepreneurship is of Tamil Nadu (13.51%) followed by Kerala (11.35%), Andhra Pradesh (10.56%), West Bengal (10.33%) and Maharashtra (8.25%).

Average employment per establishment for women owned establishments is 1.67.

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