IMPACT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN MUMBAI

The objective behind this research is to study the effect of lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic on small scale businesses operated by women and to suggest required changes to improve business environment for women entrepreneurs to managing their business in such an unexpected crisis. Another objective of study is to find out a contemporary issues faced by small scale businesses operated by women during the period of lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. The study focused on change in Sale Revenue of business, overall household income, lifestyle and very importantly mental health.  Qualitative research design is used to study impact of COVID-19 on activities of the micro scale business operated by women’s entrepreneurs. Structured questionnaire, Semi-structured interview and discussions used to collect primary data from the women selected for the study. The study revealed that it is necessary that business should be use more technology particularly digitalization is an important thing. The results also revealed that the conditions like lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic affect the women physical and mental health. Consideration of gender gap also one of the issue in affected efficiency of women lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic in developing countries like India. One More important issue highlighted through this study is that skill development for women entrepreneurs is necessary to make them competitive and enhance their capacity to deal with different issues.