Women are entering the world of entrepreneurship at a much faster rate than men, although their businesses have been much harder hit by the recession than their male-owned equivalents, reports The Financial Times.
The latest start-up figures from Barclays show that the recession has done little to quell the rise in self- employment with 460,000 new businesses created in 2009, compared with 468,000 in 2008.
Female self-employment increased by 4.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2009, the latest date for the research, compared with the same period a year earlier. By contrast, male self-employment was up just 1.1 per cent.
A separate study of 2,012 entrepreneurs by Delta Economics found few differences between female and male owner managers in terms of start-up funding, job creation and sales.
However, it emerged that the turnover of women-owned businesses had suffered significantly more during the recession than in companies run by men — dropping 48 per cent for female-owned enterprises.
Photo by fakhar.