This article gave a brief overview of the role that gender can play when starting a business. Unfortunately, if the data provided here is accurate, it looks as though the gender gap, particularly regarding entrepreneurship, continues to grow. While this article gave a few example as to why this might be happening which included capital raising, work-life balance and education, I’m not sure this tells the whole story. This article left me wondering about what other contributing factors might play into this issue? Why aren’t more women starting up businesses? Is it really just because of family obligations, or, is there something much deeper causing this discrepancy?
I agree that we’re not getting the whole story. I don’t claim to have the answers to these questions, but I have read on the fundraising side that a big factor in the disparity of money raised is the nature of the businesses started. Men tend to have a much larger footprint in tech ventures, and those are the high-growth companies that get the big bucks from investors. Women, on the other hand, tend to prefer “lifestyle” businesses, retail, and consumer products, and these are (typically) slower growth business that don’t require the huge inflows of capital. Then there’s the fact that some women don’t seek equity investment – Sara Blakely (of Spanx fame) has made her mark as the youngest self-made female billionaire in the U.S. – and she never took any investment money at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Blakely