2025 Volume 55 Issue 1 Pages 117-139
The socio-economic development of Bangladesh is affected by gender inequality, uneven distribution of livelihood assets, and lack of income opportunities for rural people. The government policies are intended to promote gender empowerment, prosperity and equitable growth of the country. The common interest group (CIG) aims to build a conducive environment for male and female members to enhance entrepreneurship development and economic empowerment. Notable initiatives include equal access to and ownership of productive assets, entrepreneurial skill development, and marketing facilities to eradicate poverty and unemployment problems from the society. The primary goal of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of the CIG approach to guide socio-cultural changes attributed to limited means of income-earning through entrepreneurship development in rural areas of Mymensingh District. To achieve our goal, we set the hypothesis for verification as “Common interest group (CIG) approach is effective to bring socio-cultural changes (gender equality and economic empowerment, etc.) through entrepreneurship development for sustainable socio-economic development in Bangladesh (H1)”. We introduced the qualitative method of trajectory equifinality modeling (TEM) based on six cases (three male and three female) of local entrepreneurs through a semi-structured questionnaire survey to verify our hypothesis.
The results clarified that women entrepreneurs faced more potential constraints compared to men due to socio-cultural barriers and traditional gender roles. It also revealed that the CIG approach was effective for entrepreneurial development through the formation and mobilization of social capital and enabling the environment to overcome the challenges. Furthermore, mixed-gender CIG composed of male and female entrepreneurs was more effective when compared to single-gender CIG to ensure gender equality and economic empowerment. Small-scale entrepreneurial activities brought positive impacts on employment creation, local economic growth and minimizing gender gap. Besides men, women were also empowered through their contributions to family income and cognitive changes in society. Access to finance, workplace culture and institutional support were the most crucial factors for entrepreneurship development. The policy recommendation suggests to set priorities for the promotion of entrepreneurship to facilitate socio-cultural transformation to build an affluent society based on fairness. In particular, gender-inclusive entrepreneurial environment is essential for sustainable socio-economic development in Bangladesh.
JEL Classification:R1, R11
