Impact of Women Entrepreneurship on Women Empowerment in Pakistan

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1.1 Background

Women in Pakistan face several challenges due to their economic, social, and cultural status. They constitute 52% of the total population of Pakistan but unfortunately, they function from a subordinate position inherit in both traditional and state institutions. The Gender-Related Development Index (GDI) helps us to understand gender inequalities and its connection to vulnerability, particularly inequalities between men and women. When this measure is taken into consideration, Pakistan ranks 152 of 155 countries which show greater gender disparity. A similar index on gender issues is the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), which takes into account gender inequality in economic and political spheres. According to the United Nations Development Programme (2009), Pakistan ranked 99 out of 109 countries for which data are available.

These facts shows that Pakistani women grow up with limited opportunities to access education and basic necessities of life which further limit their capability to earn a living, and force them to seek employment in informal sectors more than three fourths of the economically active women in urban areas are employed in the informal sector(ADB,2000). The existence of informal economy reveals the potential of entrepreneurship and provides an opportunity to utilize it as an agent for change.

1.2. Significance

Inflation, high unemployment, and increasing poverty have put a lot of pressure on government to make strategies of empowering women and made them an economically active member of society. On the other hand government is not being able to create huge number of jobs in formal sector in the current situation of economic and political instability. In this scenario it is important to harn...

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