Women entrepreneurs – how many are there?

Posted by Fiona Powell in Uncategorized, old old posts on Mar 6th, 2007 | no responses

When I launched Her Business back in 1995, research touted women were on track to owning half of all businesses in the States and in Australia and New Zealand by the year 2000.

2000 has been and gone… so have we reached the milestone? Is women’s business ownership still on the increase?

In the States, The National Women’s Business Council cites: Majority-owned, privately-held women-owned firms account for 30 percent of all businesses in the country. Equally-owned firms represent another 18 percent of all firms. Thus, nearly half (48%) of all privately-held U.S. firms are at least 50 percent owned by women.

And there’s growth happening too: The number of majority-owned, privately-held women-owned businesses grew by 23 percent during 1997-2004 compared to nine percent of all U.S. businesses.

In New Zealand the GEM (Global Entrepreneur Monitor) report released in 2005 indicated 14% of entrepreneurs were female, an increase from the 2003 rate of 9.9 percent.

In NSW, Australia 29% of small business operators were women in 2004 while national figures from the GEM report cite there was an increase of female business owners from 5.6% to 9.6% in 2003.

Statistics vary – the definition of a female business owner varies from research project to research project (full-time vs part-time, self employed vs employer, full shareholder vs majority shareholder and so on).

:::::: So no, we’re not there yet… but the good news is more and more women are still exploring the option of business ownership.