Women's Entrepreneurship and Microfinance

Description

This book offers a critical perspective on the issues related to women’s empowerment, microfinance, and entrepreneurship in India. Written by distinguishing experts in this field, this book highlights women’s empowerment, which is a process of entrusting power to an individual on the control over resources and decisions. However, these two factors are less effective in a society where religion and cultural dominance is high. The book sheds light on the social security measures undertaken by the government aiming to the right to work helped women who are bounded by social restrictions. Over time there is a shift in rural occupational structure towards non-farm activities, which is largely distress driven self-employment. Access to credit is a great source to provide self-employment that develops self-esteem among women and uplift their position. The book highlights the discrimination against women entrepreneurs in access to credit led to gender biased entrepreneurial society. Association with self-help groups (SHGs) has made women more socially empowered. SHG members help them to change their life in a positive manner through micro-entrepreneurial activities. The book has emphasized on the role of microfinance, which has served the poor to become financially self-reliant. It is observed that for second generation borrowers, the impact of microfinance seems to fizzle out, where MFIs who are gaining efficiency are diverting their objective of servicing poor, signalling a sign of mission drift. Front Matter ....Pages i-xv Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 Women Empowerment in India (Chaiti Sharma Biswas)....Pages 3-16 Measuring Women Empowerment in the Household Sector: A Generalized Index and an Application to Indian Households (Subhendu Chakrabarti)....Pages 17-39 Traditional Institutions and Female Beneficiaries of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee in West Bengal (Arghya Kusum Mukherjee, Amit Kundu)....Pages 41-55 Empowerment of Women Through Public Programs in Rural West Bengal: A Study on National Rural Livelihood Mission in a Block of Purulia (Tithi Bose, Archita Ghosh)....Pages 57-74 Non-farm Employment Among Rural Women: Trend and Determinants (Aparajita Dhara, Biswajit Chatterjee)....Pages 75-93 Front Matter ....Pages 95-95 Efficiency and Mission Drift—Debate Revisited in Indian Context (Chandralekha Ghosh, Samapti Guha)....Pages 97-117 Microfinance and Human Development: A Cross-Generation Study (Arijita Dutta, Sharmistha Banerjee)....Pages 119-130 Microfinance for Women-Owned Small Business in India: Challenges and Opportunities (Avijit Brahmachary)....Pages 131-153 Front Matter ....Pages 155-155 Going Through the New Avenue of Life: A Study on Factors Working Behind Entrepreneurship Development Through Self-Help Group (Kallol Das)....Pages 157-171 Access to Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Empowerment: A Case Study (Sudipto Ghosh, Chiranjib Neogi)....Pages 173-189 Access to Credit and Microentrepreneurship: A Gender Comparison (Rabin Mazumder, Subham Dastidar, Amit Kumar Bhandari)....Pages 191-210