The global commitment to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030 focusses on poverty, tackling inequality and injustice, setting different targets including the economic empowerment and the wellbeing of women. Central to an inclusive and sustainable industrial development is the need to harness the economic potential of women and for that entrepreneurship remains critical. The present article is contextualised against the backdrop of the SDGs and tries to address questions of women’s empowerment, agency building and wellbeing through an analysis of the entrepreneurial activities of women. To this end, the article tries to provide policy recommendations indicating that entrepreneurship is not only an economically rewarding activity but also needed to address larger questions on reducing gendered vulnerabilities across social groups and building a women’s agency for sustained labour market participation. The article is based on the secondary data largely drawn from the Economic Census and the reports of the National Sample Survey.

Regulating international labour migration has been at the core of policy concerns in many countries of the world. The increasing movement of people from countries of origin to destination for employment has led to corresponding issues of trafficking of women, exploitation by recruitment agencies and violation of migrant rights. In this context, this present paper explores the problems of migrant workers exploited through recruitment agencies and the nature of exploitation and atrocities perpetrated on them. It also tries to understand the role of migration policies and migration management and regulation. Overall, the paper contextualizes international migration and the role played by recruitment agencies vis-à-vis Private Employment Agencies Convention 1997 (No.

The present paper is contextualised within the backdrop of high informality and a declining female labour force participation in India. Women in India are predominantly in the informal sector engaged in various kinds of precarious employment including home based work that remains unaccounted and undercounted in National Accounting Statistics. Since the home based workers are not into a formal employment relationship and mostly work within the domains of the household, they largely remain outside the purview of social protection. The present paper provides an insight into home based work in India and tries to locate home based workers and their employment conditions vis a vis their location in various social groups. It also tries to understand the existing data gaps in capturing home based workers thereby attempting to locate the gender concerns in data sources for providing full visibility to the informal economy. The paper tries to provide policy recommendations for addressing the concerns associated with home-based workers and larger questions on reducing gendered vulnerabilities across social groups for a sustained labour market participation. The paper is based on secondary data from several governmental sources including the Census, National Sample Survey (NSS), Time Use Survey 1998–99 and the Economic Census.

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