Rural Women Entrepreneurship and Self-Help Groups in India: Mechanisms, Constraints, and the Path to Entrepreneurial Agency

Angam Jayalakshmi

doi:10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i02.80937

Rural Women Entrepreneurship and Self-Help Groups in India: Mechanisms, Constraints, and the Path to Entrepreneurial Agency

Author(s)	Smt Angam Jayalakshmi
Country	India
Abstract	India's rural landscape presents a structural paradox with respect to women's economicparticipation. Although women constitute nearly half of the rural labour force and perform indispensable roles in agricultural production and household sustenance, they remain systematically excluded from formal economic activity owing to restricted access to credit markets, denial of asset ownership rights, and entrenched patriarchal norms. Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have emerged over the past three decades as a significant institutional mechanism to address this exclusion, mobilising over 140 million rural women into collective savings, credit, and livelihood platforms across India. This paper examines the relationship between SHG membership and rural women's entrepreneurial development, with particular attention to the mechanisms through which group participation reshapes women's economic agency and entrepreneurial identity. Drawing on constructivist Grounded Theory methodology and a national-level empirical framework, the study identifies entrepreneurial identity reconstruction as the primary mediating outcome of sustained SHG participation, operating through three core mechanisms: collective financial socialisation, peer-validated risk tolerance, and incremental public sphere visibility. The paper further examines constraints including caste-based hierarchy, household patriarchal resistance, and policy implementation gaps that moderate this transformation.
Keywords	Self-Help Groups, Rural Women, Entrepreneurship, Empowerment.
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 2, March-April 2026
Published On	2026-03-30
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i02.80937

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Rural Women Entrepreneurship and Self-Help Groups in India: Mechanisms, Constraints, and the Path to Entrepreneurial Agency

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