An empirical investigation of inequality among the self employed women entrepreneurs in informal sector in India

Abstract

The present study takes into account self employed women entrepreneurs engaged in running vegetable/fruit/flower/fish, beauty parlour, boutique, stationary/gift/toy, general store, cosmetic/bangle, grocery store, tea/cold drink/egg/pan, clothes/garment and others. Based on 935 women entrepreneurs Gini coefficient and Theil index have been the highest for those women entrepreneurs who are engaged in tea/cold drink/egg/pan business and the lowest for those engaged in vegetable/fruit/flower/fish. Subgroup indices of general entropy and Atkinson for economic activities shows that GE (-1) is the highest for and district wise general stores, GE (0) is the highest for beauty parlour, GE (1) is the highest tea/cold drink/egg/pan and GE (2) is the highest for cloth/garments. Subgroup indices of Atkinson A (0.5), A (1) and A (2) for economic activities are the highest for tea/cold drink/egg/pan business, vegetable/fruit/flower/fish and for beauty parlour business. It is worth mentioning here that within group inequality is more than the between group inequality. © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.