Entrepreneurial Intention Among Male and Female Students From Different Domains of Specialty

Huge numbers of young graduates have flooded into the job market every year. They prefer secured jobs either in multinational corporations or government sectors, but the existing sectors are inadequate to absorb all fresh graduates. Entrepreneurship has been recognized as one of the tools that generate employment and drives economic growth of a country. Hence motivating entrepreneurial activity among this generation paves way for employment generation and may become as a solution for unemployment dilemma. An individual’s behaviour towards government job or self-employment depends on intention. This paper sets out to present a detailed empirical investigation of the entrepreneurial intentions of youth in Tamilnadu, India. The study employs the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), in which intentions are regarded as resulting from attitudes, perceived behavioural control, and subjective norms. Data were gathered through questionnaire survey from 188 post-graduate students from science and non-science degree from a recognized university in Tamilnadu, India. 2x2 ANOVA analyses performed to examine the differences between male and female from science and non-science on entrepreneurial intention and the antecedents of entrepreneurial intention. The result indicated that there is a difference in the level entrepreneurial intention, attitude towards behaviour, and perceived behaviour control between male and female. Female students are less interested in entrepreneurship compared to their male counterpart due to the influence of the traditional social role. Both male and female have the same perception regarding the pressure place by the society to perform certain actions. Further the study reveals domain of specialty does not have a significant effect on students’ entrepreneurial intention