Article Survival of the Smallest: A Study of Microenterprises in Haryana, India Surender Mor 1 , Sonu Madan 2 , Geoffrey R. Archer 3 and Arvind Ashta 4 Abstract The present study investigates the sustainability of microenterprises using primary data on 222 microenterprises in the informal small business segment of India. We identified relevant factors inducing entrepreneurs to sustain their business despite facing challenges emerging in the business world from time to time. The findings indicate that microenterprises with higher initial capital invest- ment and those run by more experienced entrepreneurs have more chances for their long-run survival. The findings further indicate that the attainment of higher education is unrelated to long-term survival in the microbusiness world, perhaps because it opens more options of livelihood leading to exploration and experi- mentation of other areas of work engagement. The probability of long-run survival is higher in manufacturing microenterprises as compared to trading and services, likely because manufacturing experiences less volatility in this penurious context. Finally, microenterprises managed by males have better chances of long- run sustainability than female-operated microbusinesses. Keywords Microbusiness, informal business sector, micro-entrepreneurs, sustainability, multinomial logistic regression, education versus training, women’s enterprise Millennial Asia 1–25 © 2020 Association of Asia Scholars Reprints and permissions: in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india DOI: 10.1177/0976399619900609 journals.sagepub.com/home/mla 1 Department of Economics, BPS Women University, Khanpur Kalan, Haryana, India. 2 Department of Economics, Indira Gandhi University, Meerpur, Rewari, Haryana, India. 3 Eric C. Douglass Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies, Royal Roads University, Victoria, Canada. 4 Accounting, Finance and Law Department, CEREN, EA 7477, Burgundy School of Business— Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France. Corresponding author: Surender Mor, Department of Economics, BPS Women University, Khanpur Kalan, Haryana 131305, India. E-mail: Surendermor71@gmail.com