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Policies ease entry for women entrepreneurs—but without spatial justice, equity in India’s markets is still out of reach.
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The increasing representation of women in India’s economic data and on e-commerce platforms highlights the success of policies supporting women entrepreneurs through credit, skilling, and formalisation. However, it also reveals a persistent policy vacuum that hinders women’s empowerment and integration into the country’s workforce. Does an increase in the Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) signal a corresponding rise in ownership rights and empowerment for women entrepreneurs? Has India’s traditional urban planning model—and the newer technological push for ‘smart cities’—democratised access to economic spaces and enabled meaningful market integration for women entrepreneurs?
This article argues that FLFPR must be re-envisioned to ensure women have an equal stake in spatial justice—including ownership and co-governance of economic spaces, access to trade licences, physical markets, and procurement systems across the business supply chain.
The Union Budget 2025–26 allocated over INR 3 lakh crore for self-employment, skilling, and credit access for women entrepreneurs. This financial impetus aims to strengthen schemes, such as the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY), Stand-Up India, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM), PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbharNidhi (PM SVANidhi), and Startup India—initiatives that promote inclusion and ease of doing business for women.
India’s Periodic Labour Force Surveys show a consistent rise in women’s labour force participation, with urban FLFPR (for women aged 15 years and above, either employed or seeking employment) increasing from 15.9 percent in 2017–18 to 22.3 percent in 2023–24.
For example, PMEGP, which offers credit-linked subsidies to new micro-enterprises, supported 89,118 enterprises in 2023–24. PMMY, with its three-tier lending model (Shishu, Kishor, Tarun), has expanded access to micro-credit for small businesses and microenterprises. As of December 2024, women had registered 2,20,73,675 MSMEs and micro enterprises on the Udyam Registration Portal (URP) and Udyam Assist Platform (UAP). Over 80 schemes exist across ministries, financial institutions, and startup missions.
Still, most of these schemes focus on entry—prioritising access to credit and skills—without addressing the structural barriers and gendered disparities in India’s market economy. Women often operate in markets planned and designed by men without formal structures, or on the urban periphery, lacking any negotiating or co-governing stake. Markets seldom offer gender-inclusive amenities such as toilets, feeding rooms, or daycare, which undermines spatial justice. Furthermore, these schemes overlook women’s structural exclusion from economic negotiations and legal and regulatory frameworks—conditions critical for equitable participation. These gaps signal a clarion call to develop integrated policies that consider procurement pipelines and co-governance, and reimagine ‘inclusion’ from visibility to active stakeholder participation.
India’s Periodic Labour Force Surveys show a consistent rise in women’s labour force participation, with urban FLFPR (for women aged 15 years and above, either employed or seeking employment) increasing from 15.9 percent in 2017–18 to 22.3 percent in 2023–24. In the same period, the worker population ratio (actual number of employed women among the population) rose from 14.2 percent to 20.7 percent.
Yet, despite these gains, women’s work and entrepreneurship largely remain informal. India continues to lag globally on FLFPR. In the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2024, India slipped two ranks from 2023, scoring 0.641—below the global average of 0.685. On the Economic Participation and Opportunity sub-index, India ranked 142 out of 146 countries, scoring 39.8 percent compared to the global average of 60.5 percent.
Furthermore, PLFS data from 2017–18 to 2023–24 also show that self-employment among urban women rose from 34.7 percent to 42.3 percent, while regular wage/salaried employment declined from 52.1 percent to 49.4 percent. Consequently, their unemployment rate fell from 10.8 to 7.1 percent. In contrast, the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) 2023–24 found that 26.2 percent of proprietary enterprises—mostly home-based, unregistered, and informal micro units—are owned by women. Yet they lack safety nets, scaling support or infrastructural access.
Therefore, to gauge women’s empowerment in India meaningfully and accurately, a critical examination of the types of jobs, their work conditions, and the broader social and economic context in which they operate must be readily sought. Limited access to secure formal employment, care burdens, and exclusion from institutional networks often sequester women into self-employment—not as a choice, but a necessity.
In many cases, businesses are registered in women’s names to gain tax exemptions, subsidies, or scheme benefits, while male relatives retain control over purchasing, pricing, and market expansion. This ‘disguised ownership’ inflates women’s entrepreneurship data, masking the true extent of their participation and control—up to 30 percent, according to a multi-state survey. A 2022 NITI Aayog report expressed a similar concern.
While the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) aims to digitise and democratise procurement, its stringent documentation and compliance requirements—including proof of turnover, experience, and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) certifications—render it inaccessible to many women-led microenterprises. The mandatory vendor assessment process adds further hurdles, widening exclusion due to infrastructure gaps, digital illiteracy, and lack of procedural support. For instance, GeM’s ‘Womaniya’ initiative mandates a 3 percent procurement quota for women-led micro and small enterprises (MSEs) and reduces transaction charges. Nonetheless, women constitute only 8 percent of the seller base. Even exemption clauses require formal documentation, placing the burden of proof on women who often lack institutional recognition. In 2024–25, women-led MSEs generated INR 46,615 crore—less than 1 percent of GeM’s gross merchandise value of INR 4 lakh crore.
Beyond economic parameters, zoning laws, trade networks, market associations, and formal/informal gatekeeping all shape physical markets. Existing patriarchal market biases inhibit women from having equal negotiation power, making it challenging for them to establish, run, and or scale businesses in such a complex, multi-layered market ecosystem.
E-commerce platforms and digital marketplaces have created numerous avenues for self-employment without obligations to comply with stringent regulations and informal gatekeeping in physical markets.
The digital interventions under India’s Smart Cities Mission (SCM) focus primarily on beautification, surveillance, and mobility rather than gender-inclusive infrastructure. For instance, authorities evicted female vendors in Mumbai’s Dadar Market during a road widening project without providing permanent vending zones or vendor association membership. In May 2025, despite being SVANidhi beneficiaries, street vendors in New Delhi were evicted as part of a city-wide Safai Abhiyan (Cleanup Drive).
E-commerce platforms and digital marketplaces have created numerous avenues for self-employment without obligations to comply with stringent regulations and informal gatekeeping in physical markets. However, they also digitise precarity. Many women selling on platforms such as Instagram or Meesho operate informally. They also lack logistics support or Goods and Services Tax (GST) registration, making them ineligible for public tenders and restricting their ability to scale or access credit.
The question of women’s entrepreneurship is ultimately about urban equity and spatial justice—about how women move beyond mere ‘access’ to ownership and co-governance of the spaces they sustain. Despite their visibility as street vendors, retail shop owners, or digital sellers, the absence of spatial justice stakeholder participation and right to the city limits their power to influence how markets are planned, designed, and governed.
The 2025–26 Union Budget acknowledged the vulnerabilities of platform workers and launched the e-Shram portal, introducing digital ID cards. It has also extended the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-Jay) health coverage to registered gig workers. However, these measures fail to address deeper structural issues—including skewed contracts, lack of social security portability, and exclusion from formal procurement and vendor networks.
An inclusive economy must reimagine cities not merely as growth engines but also as spaces fostering equal access. Beyond participation, policies must uphold women’s rights to co-own, shape, and govern economic spaces by:
Reforming municipal laws and reconfiguring market redevelopment under SCM beyond mere cosmetic upgrades.
Mandating participatory market planning with compulsory representation of women vendors in official vending committees.
Ensuring women’s representation in market associations that decide working hours, space usage, rent, and infrastructure.
Reforming licensing and ensuring tenure security, while expanding GeM’s eligibility criteria for recognition.
Building gender-sensitive access to gender-inclusive infrastructure, including toilets and daycare facilities
Creating a Women’s Market Integration Index to periodically track ownership, procurement, access, licensing, and representation in decision-making bodies.
The question of women’s entrepreneurship is ultimately about urban equity and spatial justice—about how women move beyond mere ‘access’ to ownership and co-governance of the spaces they sustain. Despite their visibility as street vendors, retail shop owners, or digital sellers, the absence of spatial justice stakeholder participation and right to the city limits their power to influence how markets are planned, designed, and governed. Budgetary and policy interventions must encourage and prioritise a participatory vision of the city—one that considers women’s aspirations, imaginations, and sense of belonging.
Dhaval Desai is a Senior Fellow and Vice President at Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai.
Durga Narayan is a Research Intern at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Dhaval is Senior Fellow and Vice President at Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai. His spectrum of work covers diverse topics ranging from urban renewal to international ...
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Durga Narayan is a Research Intern at the Observer Research Foundation. ...
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