Women economic empowerment is the biggest social change in recent times. The change in the economic and social status of women calls for a change in their financial knowledge and awareness level. The present study is an attempt to examine the level of awareness of women about the stock market in order to provide empirical evidence to prove that lack of awareness about the stock market is the reason for lower stock market participation among women. For the purpose of the study, data was collected from primary sources using a pre-tested, wellstructured questionnaire. To analyze the collected data, multiordinal logistic regression has been used. Besides examining the level of awareness of women, the results of the study brought out major differences in the awareness level of investors and non-investors, thereby proving that lack of awareness is one of the major reasons due to which women invest less in the stock market. The paper suggests that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as a regulator of the stock market in India should ensure that education and awareness camps are organized, especially for women so that they can also play a more active role in the stock market.

The economic empowerment of women is the biggest social change in recent times (Inglis, 2012). With the change in the economic status of women, it has become critically important to enhance their financial knowledge and awareness in order to enable them to make informed financial decisions (Koenen and Ziegelmeyer, 2011). Research on financial awareness and education of women provides evidence that on average women have lower levels of financial knowledge than men. Lower level of financial awareness among women has the potential to reduce their active participation within the economy, lessening their economic power within the households, decreasing the transmission of knowledge to the next generation and worsening the existing social disparities (Hung et al., 2012). On the other hand, an increase in the awareness of women will lead to their overall development, thereby helping the nation to prosper.

As far as the impact of financial awareness on the participation of women in economic activities is concerned, stock market participation is much lower among women than men (Rooij et al., 2007). While men and women are equally not likely to invest due to lack of capital, lack of interest, income, risk aversion, educational orientation, etc., women are more likely not to invest due to the lack of awareness.

Management Research Journal, Awareness, Stock Market, Participation, Women, A Comparative Study, Stock Investors, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Transtheoretical Model (TTM), Non-Investors .