Tough times for women entrepreneurs
Women entrepreneurs have to work twice as hard as men to start a business.
Entrepreneurship
Women entrepreneurs have to work twice as hard as men to start a business.
It costs twice to register a business and it costs three times to expand the business. Less than 25% of women own businesses.
As per NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) paper, women own only 22.5% of businesses across the world. Women own 3% to 6% of petroleum, wood products and leather businesses. In textiles, services and garments the ownership climbs to 35%. Majority of the women-owned businesses are informal. 25% of employees are women in male-owned businesses. 43% of employees are women, if the owner is a female. In women-owned firms the probability of a woman becoming a top manager is 50%, as compared to 6% in men owned firm. The disadvantage is higher in Northern and Central states.
As per the report: The only area where female entrepreneurs seem to have a significant advantage over their male counterparts is in hiring female workers (both in the informal and formal sectors). This is especially important in a context like India, where female labor force participation is low and women workers are scarce. Put together, our results suggest that while there has been progress over time, women entrepreneurs face substantially larger costs to operate both on the extensive (entry and registration costs) and intensive (hiring workers) margins.
If entry barriers go away, there will nine times more women owned firms as of today. It will lead to higher wages for women. Both will lead to gains in productivity and welfare for the women.
One more thing: Impact of COVID on women workforce Link