Women Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Rural Development in India

Abstract

Rural development implies both the economic betterment of the people living in rural areas as well as bringing out holistic development. Accordingly, government has made paradigm shift from individual-centric rural development support to creation of gainful self-employment as well as wage employment among rural masses. Entrepreneurship, in this direction, has become an important consideration. Economic growth of a region largely depends on the involvement of poor and marginal sections into the process of entrepreneurship development. Globally, a large number of unemployed youth and women are becoming self-employed through entrepreneurship and creating employment opportunities for others. Researchers have worked on women's empowerment, economic development, and their role on micro-credit movement. The work on role of women in sustainable development is very limited. This chapter has tried to analyse issues related to women entrepreneurships in light of sustainable rural development in India to meet the research gap in the current context of Indian rural economy.