Empowering Indian Women Entrepreneurship through Financial Skill Development

Abstract

Women have come a long way to share the space with males at workplace. But it is ironical that in the land
where major financial houses are headed by females most of the females of the country fair poorly on the
front of financial education. MasterCard's index for financial literacy show that in terms of overall financial
literacy, India is at the bottom among 16 countries in the Asia-pacific region with 59 index points and the
plight of women is just a guess work. Another survey by Visa, found that 34% of Indian women and 29% of
Indian men claimed to have no savings. Similarly, it revealed that 43% of Indian women do not discuss
matters of money management with their children, due to lack of financial understanding. Though initiatives
have been taken for women empowerment by providing vocational training, financial skill development of
women has taken a backseat. The initiative of Indian Government of starting aBharatiyaMahila Bank(
translated as Indian Women's Bank) is a small step towards economic empowerment of Indian women but to
make it successful further there is a need to develop the financial skill of Indian women for their economic
and financial empowerment. This Paper aims to study the obstacles in financial skill development and
various possible steps for developing the financial skill of women especially of India.