Women in STEM: Emerging Mountains in the Great Indian Entrepreneurship Landscape

Abstract

Globally, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) based entrepreneurial ventures are primarily considered to be a male dominated sector. With the increasing literacy rate among girls, rise in female oriented STEM-based startups is expected but is not the observed trend, either in India or internationally. The sixth economic census released by the ministry of statistics and program implementation, Government of India, shows that women constitute 13.76% of the total entrepreneurs of which 34.3% work in agricultural sectors while 65.7% work in non-agricultural sectors. Non-agricultural based entrepreneurial activities are dominated by manufacturing and retail based ventures with statistics on women-owned or women-led STEM based ventures unaccounted for. While studies indicate the rapid emergence of women undergraduates in engineering and technology in India (15.8% in the UK as compared to India where over 30% of the engineering students are women, Statistics from Women’s Engineering Society), the pipeline is leaky with women opting to drop out after college or midway, during careers. In contrast, statistics for women in science is lacking with few women-owned scientific spin-offs. In this perspective we aim to underscore the disparity concerning the “leaky pipeline” for women in STEM. We also compare and contrast global versus indigenous efforts to promote the presence of women in STEM-based entrepreneurial ventures as well as provide recommendations to accelerate these efforts.