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The New Entrepreneurs
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10789 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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3 / 1993 |
1,733 Words |
| Author
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Cindy Richards
Cindy Richards is a writer based in Chicago. |
Twenty years ago, the average businesswoman was a housewife who operated a little business on her dining room table, or baby-sat with the neighbor's kids for some extra cash.
Today, businesswomen are the fastest growing part of the American economy. Women own businesses in all industry sectors, and they continue to start businesses at an astonishing rate.
Consider these statistics, included in a 1992 report from the National Foundation for Women Business Owners:
The number of female owned businesses grew by 57 percent from 1982 to 1987, the most recent year for which U.S. Census Bureau data are available. The 1987 report showed 4.1 million woman-owned sole proprietorships, partnerships, and sub-chapter S corporations. The census, however, has no way to count the most powerful woman owned businesses, the full corporations, because those statistics are not kept by gender. A database developed by the foundation estimated there are 1.3 million full corporations owned by women, bringing to 5.4 million the number of women-owned businesses in the country.
Women-owned businesses now employ more people than the Fortune 500. While the big guys were laying off workers, female entrepreneurs were hiring. Women now employ more than 12 million people, 10 percent of U.S. workers.
Twenty-eight percent of all U.S. companies, including full corporations, are owned by women. Forty percent of small businesses are owned by women.
Women are proving themselves to be capable entrepreneurs. Although the majority of small businesses fail within 5 years, more than 40 percent of the businesses owned by women have been operating 12 years or longer.
Almost 9 percent of the women-owned businesses have annual sales in excess of $1 million.
Women operate businesses in all industries, although they tend to be concentrated in retail trade and services.
Women-owned businesses tend to be more stable and less likely to demonstrate dramatic growth.
The numbers prove that female entrepreneurs are "more
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