Need for Financing and Empowering Women Entrepreneurs in the MSME Sector: Evidence from Odisha, India

In this twenty-first century, the aggregative model of democracy would not be able to address the complex problem of a plural society where structural inequality is rampant. Hence, it is imperative to unearth a convenient way of the decision-making process through various social and economic empowerment factors which help to enhance the participation and awareness of women despite structural inequalities deeply rooted in Indian society in general and Odisha in particular. This article seeks to highlight the factors determining the empowerment of women and identify issues related to the management of the enterprise. This work attempts to highlight determinants of empowerment of women involved in micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) in Odisha, an eastern state of India. This study has taken a sample of 256 women entrepreneurs considering both registered and unregistered units across five regions of Odisha. For analysis, an overall empowerment index (OEI) has been framed by taking both social empowerment and economic empowerment variables. This study used a multiple regression model and an ordered logistic regression model to find out the determinants that are significantly influencing women’s empowerment. Based on the results, it is observed that economic empowerment variables like expenditure, savings, physical asset value, enterprise decision-making, and self-employment generation have a significant impact on OEI. Similarly, social empowerment variables like social status, leisure availability, business skills, unpaid work, self-decision, self-confidence, freedom of physical mobility, involvement in domestic decision-making, family problems, and networking with other entrepreneurs are playing a significant role in influencing women entrepreneurs’ OEI. Factors such as being self-employed, supplementing family income, making use of spare time, saving, educating children, better health status, etc are some of the motivating factors which encouraged women entrepreneurs to run an MSME. Major challenges faced by women entrepreneurs include constant and frequent need of capital for meeting day-to-day expenses, lack of long-term finance, obtaining finance from financial institutions, lack of experience in financial institutions, lack of technical expertise, etc. Hence, there is a need for sustainable financing the women entrepreneurs to continue their enterprises in the future.