Original Article Global Business Review 1–22 © 2020 IMI Reprints and permissions: in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india DOI: 10.1177/0972150919895090 journals.sagepub.com/home/gbr Necessity or Opportunity Driven: Gender Differentials and Structural Changes of Proprietorship in the Indian Unorganized Enterprises Shruti Shuvam 1 Pratap C. Mohanty 1 Abstract Using the latest representative datasets of National Sample Survey, this article investigates the structural changes and gender differentials in proprietorship in the Indian unorganized enterprises.This article also identifies the relevant determinants of female proprietorship in the unorganized enterprises. This study distinguishes between two types of female entrepreneurs: necessity and opportunity entrepreneurs, based on their motivation behind operating an enterprise.This study also explores the potential factors responsible for this division. The findings show that there is only 2 per cent rise in the share of female proprietors in over a 5-year period (2010–2011 to 2015–2016) and female proprietors are increasingly concentrated in necessity-driven informal entrepreneurship. Keywords Gender differentials, female proprietorship, unorganized enterprises, necessity entrepreneurs Introduction Absorbing women in the workforce has been a serious matter of debate in the recent times. Despite solid gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past decade, only 4 million net new jobs were cre- ated for women during 2000–2010 in India. This is mostly in salaried employment and absorbed by men (Daymard, 2015). Entrepreneurship 1 can be instrumental for women in creating new economic opportunities for themselves, as there is a lack of other employment opportunities for them. As per census 2011, women in India comprise around half of the total (48%) population but their participation in the economic activities is only about one-fourth. This explains that gender disparity also persists at the foundation level. 1 Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India. Corresponding author: Pratap C. Mohanty, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, Uttarakhand 247667, India. E-mail: pratapfhs@iitr.ac.in