Credit Access and Women Empowerment: Evidence from India's Informal Sector.

The unorganized sector holds extreme importance for developing and underdeveloped economies as it is a major source of livelihood for the larger populace. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO, 2002), 50–75 percent of all non-agricultural employment in the developing world exists in the informal sector.Studies suggest that unorganized enterprises are generally low on productivity and constrained to finance due to which they have limited growth opportunities (Rothenberg et al., 2016). Women in developing countries are mostly found engaged in unorganized setups as it helps them to fulfill family obligations due to time use flexibility. Deterrence to entrepreneurial activities exist for both men and women; however, female entrepreneurs are affected mainly due to gender biases arising out of socio-economic conditions or certain legal biases such as unfavorable inheritance laws (Daymard, 2015). Women empowerment in the context of knowledge society advocates building capabilities at individual levels so that women are well informed about their choices, acquire required skills, and exercise control over their decisions. This work identifies significant determinants of credit access for women-owned unorganized enterprises and their dynamics using NSS datasets and IHDS-II. The preliminary emphasis of this paper lies on the demand side factors, particularly empowerment levels of the women entrepreneurs and other owners' characteristics and firm characteristics. A multidimensional Empowerment index has been developed to measure the empowerment levels if women entrepreneurs. Policy implications based on the findings have been suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]