The study analyzes the impact of women’s entrepreneurial efforts on rural poverty (RP) reduction across two resource-scarce regions of Odisha, India. Its main objectives are creating creative home-based ventures (HBVs) and long-term RP solutions. The analysis assesses how home-based entrepreneurs’ sociocultural, economic and educational backgrounds affect the development of HBVs and the mitigation of RP. A women-led project in Odisha called Mission Shakti uses self-help groups and business ventures to empower women. The original data was gathered from 363 respondents in Odisha who were members of the Mission Shakti group. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was applied to investigate the correlations between the constructs, and AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures 21.0) and SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 20.0) were used for the analysis. The findings indicate that RP alleviation through Mission Shakti in Odisha and entrepreneurship have a statistically significant and favourable relationship. The additional findings of the study demonstrate that respondents’ sociocultural capabilities, rather than their educational and economic backgrounds, have a considerable and favourable influence on the expansion of their home-based enterprises and that the improvement of RP alleviation is more positively impacted by the qualitative growth of entrepreneurship than by the numeric growth. The study’s concentration on woman entrepreneurs in Mission Shakti’s rural Khordha and Angul areas is one of its limitations. It is possible to carry out comparable research in other Indian areas where the rural populace is significantly deprived. Policymakers in rural Odisha should consider the findings to address targeted RP. Thus, this report recommends that home-based businesses in rural Odisha should actively explore entrepreneurship to reduce poverty. Additionally, the study offers a helpful lesson to different parties involved in programs to reduce poverty in other developing nations. The integration of capacity theory and SEM in the setting of a rising economy such as Odisha, India, contributes to the body of knowledge in this research regarding the relationship linking entrepreneurship and the alleviation of RP.
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