How Female Entrepreneurs Can Increase Women’s Workforce Participation?

A recent study shows that promoting female entrepreneurship can encourage women’s participation in the world. It further added, “Female-led businesses can grow by creating better opportunities for other women.”

Presently, women are almost one-half of the world’s population but just contribute 37% of the global GDP. In terms of owning a business, half the population owns less than a fifth of the business.

As per a study on women employees, in a male-owned firm, just 23% of employees were women in 2018, but businesses led by women leaders employ more women. In male-owned businesses, just 6.5% have females in the top management, while in female-led firms, more than half of key positions are led by women.

In Indian business ecosystems, female participation is quite low in the job market. While the picture is better in entrepreneurship. Indian women are 14%  of the total number of Indian business entrepreneurs. They hold a significant share of MSMEs, contributing significantly to industrial growth and employing a sustainable portion of the total workforce.

There is an increasing recognition among world leaders that female entrepreneurs are contributing significantly to the global economy and society. Worldwide, an estimated 274 million females are engaged in business startups 139 million women are leaders of established brands and 144 million are informal women investors.

Significance of Women Entrepreneurs in Female Workforce Participation

According to the World Bank survey of 138 nations, it was found that promoting female entrepreneurship can enhance women’s workforce participation.  Even more intriguing, empowering women-led businesses will encourage other females in the business.

In a world-breaking barrier of gender inequality, women entrepreneurs stand at the forefront of this notable revolution. They are not just creating business, reframing the narratives, and paving the way for women employees to join the workplace and inspire them to make bigger dreams. Female leaders perfectly understand the varied challenges women face in the workplace.

Women employees often have to go through various challenges like family expectations, maternity breaks, societal norms, and limited access to leadership opportunities. Since women entrepreneurs have already faced the same issues, they bring an emphasis to their leadership.

They are well aware of the flexibility and support needed to support the woman. They take the right steps, like remote work options and dedicated childcare support, to encourage more women in the workplace and create a flourishing culture for them.

Further, budding women can learn from a lot of their company owners and successful women leaders. How they start, how they deal with challenges in their business, and how they manage the work-life workplace.

Female leaders know the importance of collaboration for overcoming challenges. They create networks and introduce mentoring opportunities for better guidance to women employees.

Besides, women entrepreneurs nurture a culture of inclusivity and create a space where women can share their experiences, learn from others, and overcome societal biases.

Encouragingly, women’s entrepreneurship is on the rise, but men still outnumber women by 3 to 1 when it comes to business ownership.

A new paper by Gaurav Chiplunkar and Pinelop Goldberg also said that promoting female entrepreneurs can boost women’s workforce participation. They have developed a framework to identify the challenges women face when moving to the labor force and becoming entrepreneurs.

They found major obstacles to women’s employment and higher costs for female leaders in growing their businesses by hiring employees. Removing batteries will empower woman-owned businesses, boost women’s participation in the workplace, and drive economic gains.

Research finds that Indian women work when opportunities increase, which means the declining labor participation is the reason behind the insufficient jobs and lowered demand for women’s labor. As per a recent Barclays Research report, India has the potential to reach 8% GDP growth by assuming women make up over half of the new workforce by 20230. Empowering women’s entrepreneurship is a significant way to make this happen.

Overall, significant growth has been achieved, but there is still much to be done. Women entrepreneurs are striving to succeed, but it is not possible to do it alone. Government, companies, and society all need to work together to empower women, from providing financial support to creating policies that foster gender diversity in the workplace and empower more and more women to join the workforce.