On March 8 we celebrate International Women’s Day. A day to bring awareness to gender inequality and injustice across the globe and to inspire people to take action to bring about change. This year, 2020, marks the 25th anniversary of the adoption by 189 United Nations Member States of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This document presents a way forward toward gender equality not only in the late 20th-century but in the 21st century as well. As Ban Ki-Moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, wrote in the Forward of the 20th Anniversary Edition of this document: “When we empower women and girls, we realize a better future for all.”

The Beijing Declaration states: “We are determined to … promote women’s economic independence, including employment, and eradicate the increasing burden of poverty on women…” Two ways to do this are to encourage entrepreneurship and support women-owned businesses.¹ Globally in 2018, 252 million women were entrepreneurs, with another 153 million women operating established businesses.

Worldwide for every 10 male entrepreneurs, there are 7 female entrepreneurs. Only 6 countries in the world have equal rates of entrepreneurship among men and women: Indonesia, Thailand, Panama, Qatar, Madagascar, and Angola. The countries with the highest percentage of female entrepreneurs include Angola (40.7% of the adult female population are entrepreneurs), Guatemala (24.5%), Chile (21.2%), Madagascar (21.1%), Peru (20.9%), Thailand (19.3%), Colombia (17.8%), Lebanon (17.4%), Brazil (17.3%), and Sudan (17.1%). Where does the United States rank? 14th, with 13.6% of the adult female population being entrepreneurs.

Why did women establish their businesses? Did they seize opportunities given to them or did they start their businesses out of necessity? In almost all of these countries, a majority of women saw an opportunity to start a business and took it. Only in Angola did more women start businesses out of necessity rather than after an opportunity presented itself, 49.5% versus 47.2%, respectively.

Today’s market size shows the number of women-owned businesses in the United States in 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2019. Data for 2017 and 2019 are projections based on the 2012 Survey of Business Owners from the U.S. Census Bureau and adjusted using the gross domestic product figures for January of that year. Over this time period, the number of women-owned businesses grew by 66.1%. In 2007, 28.8% of businesses in the United States were owned by women; in 2019, 42% were. Revenues increased 54.6%, from $1.2 trillion to $1.85 trillion. While most women-owned businesses have no employees—in 2012, this amounted to about 90%—the number of people employed by those that do increased 24% from 7.5 million in 2007 to 9.4 million in 2019.

Half of all women-owned businesses fall into three industries: other services; healthcare and social assistance; and professional, scientific, and technical services. “Other services” includes hair and nail salons and petcare businesses. Women who start these types of businesses tend to do so out of necessity or a need for a job with flexible hours. “Healthcare and social assistance” includes child daycare and home healthcare. “Professional, scientific, and technical services” includes lawyers, bookkeepers, architects, public relations firms and consultants.

The top 10 fastest-growing women-owned companies in the United States are Not Ordinary Media (revenue of $21.4 million in 2018), nutpods ($19.1 million), Kindred Bravely ($9.6 million), SD3IT ($11.9 million), Skinny Dipped ($10.2 million), TalEx ($48.5 million), TrueChoicePack ($7.8 million), 4th & Heart ($14.3 million), Core Software Technologies ($4.6 million) and WT Stevens Construction ($7.2 million). Not Ordinary Media ranked number 10 on the 2019 Inc. 5000 list with a growth rate of 11,996% from 2015 to 2018. The Inc. 5000 is a list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States.

¹ Women-owned businesses are businesses that are at least 51% owned, operated and controlled by one or more women.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2019
Market size: 7.8 million, 9.9 million, 11.6 million and 12.9 million respectively.
Sources: “Statistics for All U.S. Firms by Number of Owners by Industry, Gender, Ethnicity, Race, and Veteran Status for the U.S.: 2007,” 2007 Survey of Business Owners, U.S. Census Bureau, December 15, 2015 available online here; “Statistics for All U.S. Firms by Number of Owners by Industry, Gender, Ethnicity, Race, and Veteran Status for the U.S.: 2012,” 2012 Survey of Business Owners, U.S. Census Bureau, February 23, 2016 available online here; Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, United Nations, 1995, reprinted by UN Women in 2014 available online here; Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2018/2019 Global Report, Global Entrepreneurship Research Association, January 21, 2019 available online here; “More Than 250M Women Worldwide Are Entrepreneurs, According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Women’s Report from Babson College and Smith College,” CISION PR Newswire, November 18, 2019 available online here; Brit Morse, “These Are the 20 Fastest-Growing Female-Founded Companies in 2019,” Inc., September 19, 2019 available online here; The 2017 State of Women-Owned Business Report, American Express, 2017 available online here; The 2019 State of Women-Owned Business Report, American Express, 2019 available online here; “Women-Owned Businesses,” U.S. Census Bureau available online here.
Image source: Christin Hume, “Workspace Wonder Woman,” Unsplash, July 12, 2017 available online here

The chart above shows the percentage of job losses and gains by gender and by periods of employment decline and recovery from 1970 to 1993.  The data used to create the chart include only non-farm employment. They do not include self-employment.

In every economic recovery since September 1971, women have gained a larger percentage of the newly created jobs than men have, even though men have consistently lost most of the jobs during times of economic downturn.

Most of the jobs lost during the economic downturns have been in industries that are easily affected by the ups and downs of the economy, such as construction and manufacturing.  Men, traditionally, have held most of these jobs.  On the other hand, many of the jobs that are traditionally held by women continued to grow during the last economic downturn and gained even more during the economic recovery. These jobs include health care occupations, social services, and public school occupations.  The following table shows the percentage of men and women in the various industries.

 Approximate Percentage of Employment by Gender, 1993

Industry	Men (%)	Women (%)
Construction	90	10
Manufacturing	67	33
Health care	18	82
Social services	22	78
Local public schools	30	70

 In an economic downturn, the goods-producing sector and those industries that deal with that sector, such as retail trade, are the ones that lose the most jobs.  Even when there was a recovery, the manufacturing industry still continued to lose jobs.  This was due to automation, foreign competition, and cutbacks in government and commercial contracts. 

While people are less likely to buy goods during an economic slowdown, there is always a need for health care, social services, and schools. The aging of the population, the increased priority people put on health care, and the added jobs when new treatments are developed all contribute to the increase in health care and social service jobs. During the last recovery, the number of jobs in state and local government also expanded, with much of that growth in the school system.

In conclusion, overall, women are more likely to keep and gain jobs during economic cycles than men due to the types of industries that employ the majority of women.  More men are employed in goods-producing industries, which are affected more by economic slowdowns, automation, and foreign competition. More women are employed in service industries and state and local government. These industries do not lose as many jobs during economic downturns and, in recent years, tend to expand the number of jobs both in downturns and recoveries. 

 

SOURCE NOTE–This essay is one from the first volume of a four volume reference work titled Social Trends & Indicators USA, written by the staff of Editorial Code and Data, Inc. and published, in 2003, by Thomson Gale. It is being used here, by Editorial Code and Data, Inc., to do some testing of electronic data presentation.