Do Traditional Institutions Constrain Female Entrepreneurship? A Field Experiment on Business Training in India

This paper explores how traditional religious and caste institutions in India that impose restrictions on women's behavior influence their business activity. Our analysis makes use of a field experiment in which a randomly selected sample of poor self-employed women were trained in basic financial literacy and business skills and encouraged identify concrete financial goals. The sample is relatively homogeneous in term of socioeconomic status (e.g. education). However, differences in religion and caste mean they face very different traditional restrictions on mobility and social interaction. Muslim women face the most restrictions. Among Hindu women, upper castes face significantly more restrictions than scheduled castes, the lowest group in the caste hierarchy.