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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the determinants of occupational choice of workers in the handloom industry in Assam and to examine the variables that influence the occupational choice of the workers. Design/methodology/approach – Primary data were collected from nine handloom concentrated districts in Assam. Multinomial and binary logistic regression models are used to analyse the data of three mutually exclusive occupations of workers namely owners, weavers, and reelers. Findings – The results from the tested empirical model show that annual income, education, access to modern technology, and family size are the significant variables that help in transforming the reelers to owners. Similarly, annual income, education, and access to formal credit are the important variables that help in transforming the reelers to weavers. Access to modern technology appears as the most important factor in the occupational shift from weavers to handloom owners. Research limitations/implications – Present study has some limitations. It considers only a few variables related to economic and socio-demographic issues. There is further scope of research incorporating more variables such as personal savings, healthcare facilities, availability of hank yarn, marketing facilities, etc. Limitation of data in the worker category helper is another finding constraint. Practical implications – Such studies in the handloom sector in Assam are limited and thus the present study greatly extends the understanding of the occupational choice of the workers in Assam's handloom industry. Originality/value – Previous studies on handloom industry concentrated predominantly on the economic condition of the workers using mostly multiple regression technique. The present study deviates from normal research by using multinomial and binomial logistic regressions, which analyse the likelihood of occupational shift of the workers. The findings can be generalized to other handicraft-based small industry.

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Women entrepreneurship is gaining importance all over the world for addressing the development issues of women. Since the inception of the five-year plans, the Government of India has been giving attention towards mitigating the development issues of women such as labour force participation, empowerment, education and gender inequality. Women-owned micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are contributing significantly towards the economic development of the nation through employment and income generation, poverty eradication, and by bringing entrepreneurial diversity in the economic activities. The handloom industry offers an appropriate setting to analyse the significance of the rural women-owned microenterprises towards local economic development. With archaic hand-operated looms, the production mechanism takes place mostly in the rural areas. The present article analyses the factors that affect tribal women to own a handloom microenterprise. It is based on primary data collected at firm level from two major tribes in Assam, namely Bodo and Mising. The data were collected from five different districts in Assam where tribal communities are operating handloom businesses. Within the framework of random utility model of economic choice, the findings of the probit model show that age, knowing other handloom micro-entrepreneurs, past history of family business, access to borrowing and risk-taking behaviour have Article

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