Journal of Development Research

Gender, Firm Dynamics and Education in Accessing Microloan: Commentary on Women Entrepreneurs in North East India

Ashraf Rehman¹

First Published 2 Jun 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/22297561251333500

Article Information

Corresponding Author:

Ashraf Rehman, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad, Dhanbad, Jharkhand 826004, India.
Email: ashrafrehman41@gmail.com

¹Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-Commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed.

Abstract

This commentary aims to examine the influence of gender on the accessibility of microloans in North Eastern Region (NER), India. Using data obtained from 200 entrepreneurs from NER, the article employed the logit model to address two key questions: (a) Does gender play an important role in access to finance? And (b) What is the role of Self-help Groups and education in access to finance? In the light of these research questions, findings from 200 small businesses are presented. The findings of the empirical analysis revealed that firm size, educational qualifications and gender of small business owners play a significant role in the accessibility of microcredit from financial institutions.

Keywords

Microcredit, women entrepreneurship, gender, firm size, access to finance

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