The Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the world's health and financial systems, halting normal social and economic processes. Furthermore, the pandemic's gendered impact has disproportionately favoured women, exacerbating already-existing gender inequities in health, security, and socio - economics. As a result of COVID-19, women's underemployment rates are almost 1.8 times higher than men's job loss rates over the world. The unemployment rate for women was 5.7%, compared to 3.1% for men.
Between March and April 2020, an estimated 17 million to 19.3 million women were unemployed as a result of the lockdowns. It is important to note that women dominate high-impact industries such as commerce and services. Personal and non-professional services, which include small-business owners such as tailors, dressmakers, petty shopkeepers, barbers, and beauty salon owners, as well as domestic help and part-time workers, were more volatile than other industries. As a result of the lockdown, male employment declined by 30% and female employment fell by 43%.
Despite the fact that COVID-19 had a disproportionate impact, recovery has favoured men. Men's employment levels are predicted to recover by August 2020, but women's employment prospects remain 9.5 percentage points lower than men's pre-pandemic. Women were eight times more likely than men to have lost their jobs after controlling for caste, religion, age, degree of education, employment arrangement, industry, and state of domicile.
Taking the plunge into self-employment
Self-employment may have served as a “buffer” for those who had lost occupations, both formal and informal. Self-employed people were more likely than temp and casual wage workers to claim COVID-19 had "no influence" on their job condition. Prior to the outbreak, approximately 20% of people who had official or informal work went into self-employment. As a result of this distinctive pattern of employment transitions, the entire composition of employment in India has changed significantly.
Rural women-led enterprises, on the other hand, have a track record of surviving economic downturns. However, India's long-term shutdown was unique, and nothing is known about the repercussions of a whole shutdown, especially when women are burdened with increased unpaid care chores and limited cash reserves at home and in their businesses.
Regardless of this optimism, and even if the economy recovers and firms re-establish themselves, women entrepreneurs confront a variety of challenges. The domestic workload of women has increased, resulting in a greater proportion of unpaid work. In comparison to 53% of male respondents, more than 70% of female entrepreneurs reported an increase in domestic problems. In addition, women are less likely to be aware of government support programmes (76% as compared to 54% for men). Furthermore, numerous entrepreneur support services have moved online, limiting access to persons who are not financially or technologically adept, both of which women lack.
Tale of Savita Dishe - First Woman in her Family to Lead a Large-Scale Business
When India's shutdown was announced, Maharashtra-based Savita Dishe, who sold brooms at weekly haats, lost her revenue due to diminished access to marketplaces and networks. After seeing pandemic-induced reverse migration, which saw people returning to their villages from Mumbai and Pune, she quickly adapted to a new strategy to handle the problem. Using WhatsApp as a marketing tool, Dishe established herself as the best Mumbai-style vada pao seller in her neighbourhood and the nearby areas. Because her whole business approach, including sourcing, marketing, and sales, was based on an internet platform, Dishe quickly began to make more money than she did in her previous offline firm. Dishe is thrilled to be the first woman in her family to run a large-scale business, having obtained a licence from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) for her kitchen.
Women in Rural Areas Aware of Digital Tools
Women in rural India are increasingly utilising digital tools to run existing businesses and create new ones. The number of individuals utilising the internet in rural India has climbed by 13% in the last year, to 299 million. Despite socio-cultural constraints, women entrepreneurs in rural India have adopted digital solutions to successfully sustain their enterprises by utilising the availability of inexpensive smartphones and cheap internet data packs.
Social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp have evolved into marketing tools for women-owned businesses in the COVID-19 era, allowing them to keep contact with existing customers while expanding their reach to territories outside their control. Women entrepreneurs in the country must now be able to negotiate digital payment alternatives that were previously optional. They have embraced the digital economy, relying on net banking and UPI payment methods such as BHIM, Phone Pe, Paytm, Google Pay, and WhatsApp Pay for all of their financial transactions.
Faced with the epidemic, women entrepreneurs have had little choice but to adopt and adapt to digital business strategies, motivated by a desire to assist and flourish their families. Upskilling and innovation have become survival and success tools for the country's MSMEs and female entrepreneurs. While many women have succeeded, a significant number have also seen their sources of income disappear totally.
To successfully address COVID-19's negative impact on female entrepreneurs, stakeholders must collaborate to accelerate their inclusion in the digital economy through sector-specific interventions, targeted mentorship models, and the expansion of avenues of opportunity through incubation and accelerator models. The COVID-19 era's limitations have emphasised the fact that active help across the ecosystem is all that women need to succeed as entrepreneurs provided they have the resilience of spirit and adaptability.
The intersection of gender and entrepreneurship has received a lot of attention in recent years, but there has been less success in providing solutions with a gender lens. As markets normalise and the economy begins to expand and recover, it is vital to recognise the gender dividend and the social and economic opportunities it provides.
