An Assessment of Women Entrepreneurship in the Service Sector of Assam with Special Reference to Darrang District

Abstract

Women entrepreneurship has emerged as a key driver towards inclusive development and economic sustainability, especially in the service sector of developing nations. This paper has made an attempt to examine the performance of women-owned service enterprises in Assam with special reference to the Darrang district in terms of profitability and employment generation. This work uses descriptive statistics and multiple regression model. The study is conducted among 160 women entrepreneurs and sample size is determined by using a sampling formula developed by Yamane. Profitability is calculated in the form of Net Profit Ratio and Return on Investment whereas the employment generation is calculated based on the variations in the workforce. The results demonstrate that there is a significant difference in enterprise performance in terms of activities, level of investment, location, training, and level of adoption of digital platforms. The food and beverage, retail trade, and apparel services are found to be more profitable, and overall creation of employment opportunities is not very large. Regression analysis has shown that the use of digital platforms and age of the entrepreneur have a significant and positive impact on profitability, whereas an increase in capital investment and the experience of the enterprise have a negative impact on net profit ratios, which could indicate a decreasing effect and inefficiency in operations over time. There is no significant effect of training and employment creation on profitability.