“It’s a good time to be a female entrepreneur,†says Caitin Berens of Inc. Indeed, women-owned businesses have grown by over 54 percent since 1997 at a rate 1.5 times that of the national average, according to a recent American Express OPEN study. Nearly one third of all businesses (or 8.3 million) are now female-owned. The education, health care and social assistance, as well as arts, entertainment and recreation sectors in particular have seen the fastest growth in the number of women-owned businesses in the past decade.
The study shows the South reigning victorious over this budding trend, with the fastest growth rates of women-owned businesses in Georgia at 95 percent growth, North Carolina at 83 percent, and Mississippi and Texas at 75 percent. The only exception to these higher growth rates is Nevada at 92 percent growth, while Alaska, Iowa, West Virginia, Kansas and Ohio come in last. More specifically, the Washington DC metropolitan area ranks number one with the most concentrated growth in the number and economic contributions of women-owned firms, followed by San Antonio and Houston, Texas.
Photo by Kevin Dooley