The Role of Financial Accessibility and Socio-Cultural Interventions in Empowering Rural Women Entrepreneurs in Pakistan

Women’s entrepreneurial empowerment in rural developing countries is one of the key engines for inclusive and sustainable economic development. Women’s participation in entrepreneurial activities in Pakistan is limited by a lack of institutional support, deep-seated cultural factors, and a lack of access to finances. Financial accessibility has been generally identified as a basic criterion for entrepreneurial activities; however, it depends on existing support institutions. The effect of financial accessibility and cultural factors on entrepreneurial empowerment in rural women of Pakistan is analyzed for a deeper understanding of the role of mediation through social capital. The study presents a combination of regression mediation using the PROCESS macro with artificial neural networks; it utilizes a two-part PROCESS–ANN approach. This study proposes that social capital acts as a mediating object and outlines a PROCESS–ANN model using Empowerment Theory and Social Capital Theory. Prior studies contained limitations due to the isolated examination of either financial factors or cultural factors for determining the effect of either one on entrepreneurial activities. Data on 385 rural women entrepreneurs of Sindh and Punjab provinces of Pakistan were obtained using surveys. The findings of this study using PROCESS provide evidence of mediation where entrepreneurial empowerment was found to be significantly affected by direct factors of both financial accessibility and cultural factors, along with a mediated effect of social capital. ANN also tested mediation, where cultural factors showed strong results in impacting entrepreneurial empowerment. The paper proposes that a framework based on PROCESS–ANN provides evidence of validity in determining factors for improving inclusive and sustainable entrepreneurial activities. By validating a PROCESS–ANN framework in alignment with SDG 5 for achieving gender equality, 8 for achieving decent work and undertaking inclusive and sustainable economies, and 10 for achieving reduced inequalities in inclusive and sustainable activities, this paper presents a constructive message within existing literature for inclusive and sustainable activities.