Women entrepreneurship is gaining importance all over the world for addressing the development issues of women. Since the inception of the five-year plans, the Government of India has been giving attention towards mitigating the development issues of women such as labour force participation, empowerment, education and gender inequality. Women-owned micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are contributing significantly towards the economic development of the nation through employment and income generation, poverty eradication, and by bringing entrepreneurial diversity in the economic activities. The handloom industry offers an appropriate setting to analyse the significance of the rural women-owned micro-enterprises towards local economic development. With archaic hand-operated looms, the production mechanism takes place mostly in the rural areas. The present article analyses the factors that affect tribal women to own a handloom micro-enterprise. It is based on primary data collected at firm level from two major tribes in Assam, namely Bodo and Mising. The data were collected from five different districts in Assam where tribal communities are operating handloom businesses. Within the framework of random utility model of economic choice, the findings of the probit model show that age, knowing other handloom micro-entrepreneurs, past history of family business, access to borrowing and risk-taking behaviour have significant and positive influences on the decision of a woman in becoming a handloom micro-entrepreneur. The study suggests for an all-inclusive policy approach for the overall development of handloom industry in the tribal areas.

 

Keywords: Micro-entrepreneurship, handloom industry, tribal women, probit, Assam