WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

African American Women in Business

Chapter 1

Women in Business

Introduction

Women's business ownership has greatly influenced the economy in general and women's economic well-being in particular. This report presents demographic descriptions of the female population and labor force, followed by data on women-owned businesses. The report concludes with a look at the relationship between women-owned businesses and women's economic wellbeing in the United States.

Over the past five years, the women's enterprise literature has developed as a result of enhanced methodological sophistication, a focus on increasingly specialised issues and greater engagement with the established disciplines. The focus of research has shifted from early studies that questioned if gender made a difference, to the current focus on how gender processes impact on the experience of business ownership.

Women's enterprise is the broad term used to describe female self-employment and business ownership. A woman-owned business is one that is wholly or majority female-owned and managed. Because of differences in operating definitions and datasets, some caution must be exercised in drawing international comparisons in female business ownership rates, particularly between the UK and US. Self-employment and TEA data are the most robust measures of women's enterprise activity at an international scale.

Women's Enterprise in the UK

There are approximately 1,013,000 self-employed women (7.6% of women in employment) and 2,706,000 self-employed men (17.4% of men in employment) in the UK. Self-employment rates (the percentage of people 'in employment' who are self-employed) vary at the regional level and these variations are explored in section 3.1.1. Most self-employment (76.6%) is undertaken on a full-time basis. Women comprise 17.5% of full-time self-employment and 59.1% of part-time self-employment.

Different levels of male and female self-employment are largely attributable to gendered divisions within the labour market. Traditional occupational choices have steered men into skilled trades, while women are over-represented in administrative and public service occupations where conversion into self-employment is less obvious. The bulk of male self-employment is within the skilled trades (39.4%), managers and senior officials (16.3%), associate professional and technical (13.5%) and professional occupations (13.1%). In contrast, most female self-employment falls within four occupational categories: managers and senior officials (22.1%), associate professional and technical (19.6%), personal services (18.1%) and professional occupations (11.8%).

Survey evidence indicates that businesses that are wholly or majority female-owned account for between 12.3% - 16.5% of the UK business stock. A large proportion of female entrepreneurial activity takes place in businesses that are co-owned equally by men and women. If the definition of women's enterprise included co-owned businesses (an approach often used by US researchers), it is estimated that between 34.1% - 41.2% of the UK small business stock is either owned or co-owned by women.



Annotated Bibliography

Mirchandani, K. (2005), 'Women's Entrepreneurship: Exploring New Avenues', in Fielden, S. and Davidson, M. (eds.), International Handbook of Women and Small Business Entrepreneurship, London: Edward Elgar.

National Women's Business Council, (2004). Women Business Owners and Their Enterprises. Washington DC: National Women's Business Council.

Parker, S. (2004). The Economics of Self-employment and Entrepreneurship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



Chapter 2

Young Women in Business

Research comparing male and female business owners ...