Female Entrepreneurs: Where Do They Stand? [INFOGRAPHIC]

by Kate D'Amico on April 26, 2012

While women are making headway when it comes to starting business, signing up for business school and filing patents, we have a long way to go to even the playing field in terms of getting more women on boards and in the technology industry.

UNC Business School’s blog, MBA@UNC, put together this infographic about “Women @ Work: Sound bites and statistics from women who lead”.

Some interesting statistics:

The good:

  • Women make up 46.9% of the U.S. workforce
  • Women are founding businesses at 1.5x the national average
  • The most common types of women-owned businesses are:
    • Healthcare/social assistance (15.8%)
    • Professional/scientific/technical services (14.1%)
    • Retail (11.8%)
    • Admin/support, waste management/remediation (10.1%)
    • “Other services” (16.1%)
    • 187 million women worldwide are currently starting or running a business enterprise
    • Women owned 7.8 million businesses in 2007 — up from 20.1% in 2002
    • Women own 28.7% of non-farm businesses
    • The companies with the highest percentage of companies with women board members are:
      • Norway (40.1%)
      • Sweden (27.3%)
      • Finland (24.5%)
      • United States (16.1%)
      • South Africa (15.8%)
      • Women-operated, venture-backed companies have 12% higher revenue than man-operated
      • 1/1/3 of MBA recipients in the U.S. are women — the highest proportion ever
      • Women hold 18% of all patents granted, up from 9% in 1990

The not-so-good:

  • 40% of large public companies worldwide have no women on their board of directors
  • Only 3-5% of women-owned businesses receive venture capital
  • Just 10% of venture-funded startups are women-owned
  • Only 10% of venture capitalists are women
  • Female entrepreneurs begin with about 1/8 of the funding of male entrepreneurs

Words from female leaders:

“Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning because what you don’t know can become your greatest assets. It ensures that you will be doing things absolutely differently from everybody else.” — Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx

“We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women’s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored.” — Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

Are you surprised by any of these statistics? Why or why not?

You might also enjoy:

  1. A Look At Women In The Workplace [INFOGRAPHIC]
  2. The Next Generation of the Working Woman [INFOGRAPHIC]
  3. Are You A Young Entrepreneur? There’s A Fund For That
  4. Who are the Savviest Networkers?
  5. Gen Y: Entrepreneurs While Still In College

Article by Kate D'Amico

Kate D’Amico is in her senior year at Virginia Tech where she is studying communications with an emphasis in public relations, as well as psychology and special events management and marketing. She has prior internship experience in corporate communications and public relations for technology, nonprofit, and association clients.

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