The National Women’s Business Council (NWBC) recently released a report analyzing women owned businesses in America. The report, entitled “Understanding the Landscape: Access to Markets for Women Entrepreneurs” comes from a partnership between the NWBC and the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress to examine the economic, political, and social factors affecting female led organizations.
The key findings of the report took from the most recent Survey of Business Owners from between 2007 and 2012, coinciding with the US Census. According to the report, “employment from women-owned businesses grew to 8.4 million, with equally owned businesses providing an additional 6.5 million jobs. The data also revealed that employment created by women-owned businesses, as either majority or joint owners, generated $453 billion in payroll growth.”
The almost half a trillion dollars in payroll growth made women owned firms (52%) account for a faster growth rate than all firms (37%). Yet despite this high rate, women owned firms still struggle in terms of access to capital, network, and business opportunity. The report tries to dive deep into this, but shows that more studies are needed to truly understand how to properly support a growing business community.
