Women's place in social entrepreneurship in India

Abstract

Women entrepreneurship has a very high potential to allow women empowerment and transform the society. For now, this potential remains mainly unused. Less than 10 percent of the entrepreneurs in South Asian countries are women. Women entrepreneurship development can really play a strong role in a country’s development and till now the proportion of female entrepreneurs is very low in India(compared to many developed countries). It is especially obvious in rural areas. The concern for Women Entrepreneurship is very recent. It is only newly that Indian women have started to have a reflection on their existence, their rights and their work life. Despite these new considerations, women of middle class are not really eager to alter their role because most of them are afraid of the social repercussions this will have. For now, the progress is more visible among upper class families especially in urban areas. This paper aims at showing that social enterprise might be a key for an improvement of women condition in India. This appears to have a positive impact, not only to support more women to start a business venture but also on India’s development through poor women support. It will not be possible to give a good understanding of women in India and more specifically the role they have in the society and the evolution they are experiencing without having a reflection on the various roles they have to play in the Indian society. Thus a whole part of this paper will be focused on this issue. It is also critical to have an overview of what is meant by social businesses and especially how this takes place in India.