A few decades ago, societies considered a female entrepreneur unthinkable. Even though there were unerring examples of self-made female businesswomen, such as Madam C.J. Walker in the late 1900s, to inspire women worldwide to courageously enter the leading business field. Madam Walker made history by being the US’s first self-made millionaire. Over the following decades, we saw more self-made female entrepreneurs until there were more than 400 million female entrepreneurs worldwide.

Today, as women in business statistics show, women’s roles in business continue to expand and evolve. From assuming leadership positions, venturing with start-ups, and expanding their business, female entrepreneurs seem to dominate the business field. However, some of the statistics we’re discussing today prove that societies, governments and legislative authorities still have a long road to walk in achieving gender equality in business.

General Women in Business Statistics

Throughout history, it was mainly hardship or pursuing a passion that pushed many women to successfully pursue business. However, over time these motivations changed to include additional reasons such as financial stability and earning a living.

  1. The age group of female entrepreneurs reflects the dedication and resilience of women. The age group of 40 and 59 is the one that contains the majority, 62%, of women-owned businesses, and 30% are under the age of 40. More than 80% of those female entrepreneurs have a college degree. This statistic proves how improvement, gathering experience and hard work can take time.
  2. When asked whether their businesses acted as their source of income or not, 62% of women confirmed that their businesses were their main source of income.
  3. When it comes to yearly revenues, a staggering 88% of women-owned businesses barely generate 100,000 a year.
  4. Forty-eight per cent of women stated they started their own business to pursue a passion of their own.
  5. Forty-three per cent of women said they sought financial independence by starting their own business.
  6. Forty-one per cent of women denoted that flexibility was their motivation behind pursuing their own careers. Flexibility here includes better working hours, better working conditions and environment and their ability to adjust their work schedule according to any other life commitments they have.
  7. Thirty-six per cent of female entrepreneurs stated that starting their own businesses increased their money-earning potential.
  8. To maintain a better work-and-family balance, 32% of women opted to become entrepreneurs so they’d also have better control over their working hours.
  9. To have control over their working conditions and create a better work environment, 27% of women decided to start their own business.
  10. As a business owner, 91% of women in business experienced gender inequality, while 32% said they experienced sexism which translates to 1 in 3 women. Twenty-two per cent of women in business stated their colleagues, investors, and sometimes even customers underestimated them.

Women Startup Businesses Statistics

Today, there are more than 150 million startups around the world, with a new 50 million starting every year; this means there’s an average of 137,000 new startups every day.

  1. To this day, there are only 357 unicorn companies globally that are women-owned. A unicorn company is a startup that generated more than $1 billion in revenues. In the first half of 2019, ten women-owned businesses became unicorn companies, in comparison with 12 companies only in all of 2018.
  2. Forty per cent of startups have at least one woman on their board of directors.
  3. Fifty per cent of startups have at least one executive female lead.
  4. Women contributed to founding 28% of startup companies around the world.
  5. Although 10% of healthcare startups are owned or founded by women, the number is scary, where three out of four businesses in the healthcare field employ all-male teams. Healthcare startups with at least one founding woman usually have a female CEO.
  6. Startup founding team affects the business’s women’s leadership training program. If the founding team has at least one woman, there’s a 65% chance the startup has a women’s leadership training program. This percentage drops to 57% when the founding team is all men.

Minority Women in Business Statistics

The Trends report issued by Guidant Financial in 2022 about Women in Business shows that while 22% only of the survey responders were women, 15% of the total women responders were women of colour. This statistic is worrisome, as it demonstrates the fallback of the total number of women-of-colour-owned businesses.

Women in Business Statistics that Demonstrate the Shift in the Business World
  1. In the US, women of colour own 5.4 million businesses in the entire country. These businesses have a workforce of 2.4 million and generate $422.5 billion in yearly revenues.
  2. In the last 45 years, women of colour-owned businesses grew by 163%; this translates to 260 women of colour opening new businesses every day.
  3. In the last ten years, Hispanic women-owned businesses reached 1.9 million in the US alone, registering a growth rate of 172%. Over the years, these businesses created more than half a million jobs and generated nearly $100 billion in revenues. Female Entrepreneurship Statistics showed that if Hispanic women-owned businesses had the same features available for other female-owned businesses, they would generate 80,000 more work opportunities and $155 billion more in revenues.
  4. Of the total women-owned businesses in the US, 50% are owned by women of colour. This powerful statistic shows that women of colour excel in running their businesses and leading the way to more success.
  5. Nine per cent of women-owned businesses in the US is owned by Asian American women, with a total workforce of 1.9 million.
  6. The difference between the average revenue of a minority woman-owned business and a non-minority woman-owned business is stark, $65,800 for the former and $218,800 for the latter. If these two averages matched, this could create 4 million job opportunities and generate an additional $981 billion a year.

Women in Business Statistics: Male vs Female Entrepreneurs

Despite the noticeable growth in women-owned businesses, women still face much discrimination from institutions that supposedly facilitate the business process, such as financial institutions.

  1. The difference between the loan sizes offered to both men and women is $5,000, with men receiving an average of $44,000 while women receive an average of $39,000. It’s advisable that women should increase the loan amount they ask for, hence increasing the end loan they get, so if they ask for $77,000, they might end up getting $60,000 or even $50,000.
  2. Women are more successful in crowdfunding than men; they achieved a 69.5% success rate in comparison to 61.4% for men. This difference can be attributed to the use of a more optimistic tone in marketing through descriptions such as “cheerful” or “exciting”. Additionally, women tend to use more inclusive vocabulary, such as “together” or “we”, to make the consumer feel united with them.
  3. The fields of construction, Tech and metal industries are less popular for female entrepreneurs since only 13% of these businesses are women-owned. Surprisingly, these businesses achieved higher revenues during their first year.
  4. Women feel 26% more stressed about their business venture than men. They worry about the business’s success, possible revenues and employment.
  5. Despite the previous statistic, women-owned businesses generate twice the revenue as male-owned businesses. Due to the discriminative scrutiny, women-owned businesses feel, female entrepreneurs leave no room for mistakes, which explains why investors deem their businesses safer than their male counterparts.
  6. Finance, loans and end revenue are all connected in the business world. Women-owned businesses generally have small budgets, which explains why only 25% of women seek investment money, compared to 34% of men.
  7. Launching a new product can be costly; that’s why 22% of women seek funding, such as loans, to finish pending financial matters, compared to 26% of men.
  8. Another common reason to seek funding is to push business growth; women-owned businesses scored one per cent higher than men-owned businesses, with 59% and 58%, respectively.
  9. The most common method for women asking for funding is through their credit card, more than 45% of women said, compared to only 39% of men.
  10. The difference between men and women who were successful in seeking funding is minor, only 34% to 31%. However, this does demonstrate how sometimes financial institutions discriminate against women.
  11. Women-owned businesses in the Caribbean and South America generate $15,000 less revenue than men-owned businesses.

Women in Business Growth Statistics    

The gap between women-owned businesses and men-owned businesses worldwide is shrinking with time. Today, 43% of the world’s businesses are women-owned.

  1. The worldwide growth rate of women-owned businesses stands at 5%.
  2. In 2022, 47% of women ventured into the world of entrepreneurship and started their own businesses, while only 44% of men took the same initiative.
  3. In the US alone, businesses owned by women are more than 11.6 million. The workforce size in these businesses exceeds 9 million people, and together they generate more than $1.7 trillion in sales every year.
  4. The previous numbers translate to 39% of privately-owned firms in the US, 8% of the total workforce and 4.2% of the country’s revenues.
  5. In the US, the state with the highest number of women-owned businesses is California, at 1.3 million, while Texas stands at 860,000 women-owned businesses.
  6. In America, women bring 1,800 new businesses into life every day.
  7. In the last two years, females launched double the number of businesses in the healthcare industry in comparison to men, 10% to 5%. Women-owned businesses in the healthcare industry employ around 20% of the industry’s workforce.
  8. Thirty-eight per cent of Canadian small businesses are women-owned.
  9. Women-owned businesses in the Middle East tend to take their businesses to the international level, with 29% of these companies actively global.
  10. In the UAE, women-owned businesses are 12.6%, of which 75% run their business globally.
  11. In Saudi Arabia, half of women-owned businesses are active globally.
  12. More than 4% of women-owned businesses generate a revenue of one million or more.
  13. Since 2021, women-led businesses in the UK have proved that when women are given a chance and provided with the same incentives as men-led businesses, they can shine too. Women-led businesses provided the UK economy with more than £3.5 billion.
  14. In the US, Fortune Magazine issued its Fortune 500 list of the country’s top businesses according to their total revenues. Companies on the list that had at least three women in leading positions achieved 66% higher investments.
  15. Standard and Poor’s 500, or S&P 500, of the United States businesses showed that only 6.2% of the businesses on the list have a female CEO. This is a sad reflection of gender inequality that dominates assuming leadership positions in corporate America.
  16. Workforce in women-owned businesses in Australia reached 1.1 million.

Even though some women in business statistics still show there are still residues of discrimination, gender inequality and bias in the business world, women continue their resilience and keep breaking those stereotypes.

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