Broadening the Entrepreneurship Funnel for Women in Poverty Contexts: Field-Experimental Evidence From India

Research abstract: the authors study how providing knowledge about “how to do entrepreneurship” influences women's pre-entry decision to enroll in micro-entrepreneurship training in poverty settings. They carry out a field experiment study with unemployed women in rural India, randomly exposing them to “founding templates” that depict simple and replicable business set-ups and practices. The authors find that exposure to founding templates, especially those that exemplify social support rather than self-dependence, significantly increases women's sign-ups to entrepreneurship training. They also find that increased sign-ups are accompanied by enhanced perceived ease of starting a business. These results shed light on what motivates women in the pre-entry stage and offer insights on how to increase enrolment, ultimately broadening women's participation in entrepreneurship in poverty contexts.