Abstract:
Women as entrepreneurs are those who organize and manage the self-employment activities of a business. Women involved in self-employment are
an important aspect of the economy. It has a great contribution to day-to-day
life. Women are actively involved in self-employment activities, which can be
observed in rural economic development around the world. This study was
conducted among the women self-employees in Addalaichenai in the
Addalaichenai Divisional Secretariat of Ampara district in Sri Lanka. The
main objective of this research is to find out the role of women in self-employment and the specific objectives are to find out the challenges faced by
self-employed women and the contribution of the organizations to developing
self-employment activities through this research. Data for the research was
collected through the primary and secondary data collection methods.
Interviews, focus group discussion, and questionnaires were the primary data
collection methods, while reports, journals, and articles were the secondary
data sources used for this study. Questionnaires were distributed among the
women self-employees by using the snowball sampling method. The collected
data was analyzed by using quantitative and qualitative analysis methods and
presented in both regression and descriptive ways. This study found that
women self-employees played a key role in self-employment activities.
Investment, saving, education level, and family members are all factors that
have a significant impact on the income level of female self-employed
workers. Lack of marketing facilities, financial problems, and low motivation
of the organizations for developing self-employment activities are the
challenges being faced by women in the research area. To eliminate these
challenges, the government should have taken proper policy to empower
women self-employees at the local level, and it should have taken steps to
facilitate easier access to obtaining credit and find alternative marketing
sources to sell their products. It is critical to raise awareness among women
about the importance of thinking outside the box in order to become
entrepreneurial and creative.
