Determining Reasons for Lower Participation of Women in Indian Stock Market: A Comparative Study of Stock Investors and Non-investors

Today’s age is the age of the modern woman. Women these days have become more successful than ever before. While the success of women has translated into more wealth creation, it has also translated into additional challenges related to their everyday family life and most importantly related to their spending and investment decisions. Therefore, an attempt has been made to identify the factors inhibiting women from participating in the stock market in India and to find out the relative importance of these factors in determining the stock market participation among women. The data for the study were collected from primary sources using a pre-tested, well-structured questionnaire. Factor Analysis and Binary Logistic Regression have been used to analyze the collected data. The findings of the study revealed that financial hindrances, personal constraints, attitudinal constraints and gender stereotypes are reasons that inhibit women from investing in the stock market. Among the factors identified, financial hindrances were found to have the highest influence as a reason for lower participation of women. The article suggests that the policy makers need to design programs for the economic development of women because it is primarily on account of financial hindrances that women lag behind when it comes to investing in the stock market.