UK needs more female entrepreneurs to grow the economy

"The UK Government must learn from the US to encourage female entrepreneurship and increase female-owned businesses if it is to really grow the economy, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said.

Ahead of International Women’s day (Tuesday 8 March), the FSB is concerned that women-owned businesses only make up 29 per cent of self-employed people in the UK despite nearly half (46%) of the working population being female...

...Women’s enterprise contributes around £130 billion turnover and £70 billion Gross Value Added every year. But if the UK had the same level of female entrepreneurship as the US, there would be 600,000 extra women-owned businesses, contributing an additional £42 billion to the economy.

While the Government has said it is looking into female entrepreneurship, the FSB believes it is an economic resource the Government has yet to fully tap into within its plans to grow the economy."

Full Article:
The Federation of Small Businesses - FSB

Good reading, but maybe a little utopian?

I think I read somewhere that the average age of someone starting their own business was 37. If that's the case, then a large proportion of women at that age are going to have youngsters and be working part time, or in the process of having kids, as the trend appears to be to have kids older.

So is 29% of businesses being run by women really that bad a number when you factor in children? Then there is the broken homes stat, single parent families, where 9 times out of 10, the kids spend the majority of their time with the mother.

Raising kids is a stressful enough as it is, let alone the added high risk financial pressure and long working hours of starting a business.

So overall I thought 29% wasn't too bad, or do you disagree?

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More? Can women work aswell?

Only joking, two best leaders we have had (Britain) have been women, and I would rather have a woman on my team than any bloke. Fact

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I agree and disagree with your points Steve.
I agree that in Britain today 29% is not a bad percentage.
I disagree that 29% is good enough. Without sounding like a "burn your bra, women's liberation fighter", attitudes to women in business also need to change. If women were taken more seriously in the business world I do believe more woman would take the plunge to start their own business or climb the ladder within corporate organisations.

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You cannot expect people to just do that, the women who are go getters are smashing the business world, and the ones that don't sit at home finding reasons not to, just like the men do the same. If a woman wants to make it work it will, again, the same as any bloke.

People are always quick to find crutches, ironically successful people do not!

Men, Women & little green men, get off your backsides and make it happen!

Or be a loser and keep finding ways not to do well . . .

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Maybe that was true 15 or even 10 years ago, but do you still think women still have an image problem in the corporate or business world? I can only relate back to my IBM days, which in a traditional male dominated IT world, there were plenty of women, and at the customer account manager and project manager at least, women seemed to equal or number the men. But I haven't experienced sexism, so its sad to hear things still haven't changed?

Equality and bra burning aside, there is the obvious point that the female is the one who is most likely to take the primary role in child rearing, it's nature, and ours and most other societies have grown around this concept. A couple who decide to have kids, will have to face the reality that they may lose a wage earner, and the chances are this will be the women. Even if her career doesn't take a backseat, it will at least have a temporary set back.

Unless you can afford an expensive nanny, have a quick recovery from child birth and have minimal to no maternal feelings, then this is a fact of life.

It doesn't mean they can't get back onto the career ladder after a short absence, but after witnessing a friends wife who was a high flyer, and fully planned to continue the charge up the ladder post baby, her whole outlook has changed, and now is contemplating part time work. No idea of stats, but when that maternal instinct kicks in, I suspect any previous world conquering plans do get readdressed in quite a few women.

Then there are women who are fortunate to have the choice to stay at home permanently to raise kids, compared to the number of house husbands.

So surely this is always going to skew the figures, as you are going to have a block of women between 20 and 40ish who will be in this position.

That's why I thought 29% wasn't too bad a number, considering?

Phew, will wait now and see if I get lynched...

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I agree with you - it shouldn't matter what sex you are to make it happen but as a woman you have more to prove and more obstacles to jump over.

It is better than is was 20 years ago but unfortunately sexism is still there. I have had personal experience of this within the last 4 years both working in corporate land and even worse in my mind since starting up my own business in the last 9 months.

Within the corporate environment I was regularly not asked direct business related questions by senior management/board members, which as head of dept were my responsibility to answer. Instead these questions were asked to the 2 males that were my direct reporting staff (My team was made up of 2 males and 6 women plus me) . Of course I would answer the questions but any questions regarding my answer would again not be directed to me.

My MD was female and within the corporate group of companies we came under, she was the only MD that was female and she was treated terribly. She was regularly not invited to corporate events as these were deemed as "boys events", she had to constantly justify herself for being a mother and having a senior management position!

Promoting myself and MagnifyB its been slightly different.
At a workshop aimed at getting the most out of offline networking, I raised an confidence issue I have to do with my height (am only diddy at 5ft!) when going to a group already talking. The answer was ....."if its a group of males just stick your chest out. They'll soon be talking to you!"
Would the answer to a man be to stick a part of his anatomy out to a group of woman....I think not!!

That however is not as bad as been told that I can have my contact signed within the next 4 hours if I visit the local "swingers club" for a couple of hours first for a bit of fun before business!!
I kid you not! It is laughable now but at the time it was anything but!

Within employment you have employments laws to fight any sexism in the workplace (male or female) as a sole trader, small business owner or self employed entrepreneur or go getter you have very little.

My original comments about attitude changes were not made to have a go at men. They were made to address business attitudes to women in business........children and career and sexism being just 2 examples. I have know sexism comments been made from one woman to another so it isn't just men.

Again I go back to......
I agree that in Britain today 29% is not a bad percentage.
I disagree that 29% is good enough.

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why females are required for increasing the growth of economy, can anyone make it clear to me about that

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That's awful, I genuinely believed we had moved on. I suppose its the same argument with racism, you can say things like that don't happen anymore, but you'll never know unless you've experienced it

On the confidence front, been a 5ft 6" bloke, and permanent short ****, I learned to compensate with my voice, which has worked from dealing with peers, chairing meetings to offline networking events (which I hate). If you sound confident, people assume you are. In otherwords I blagg it

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It seems to be falling on the shoulders of small business to help rescue and grow the economy, and the debate was women only make up 29% of business owners. So more women business owners, means more new businesses, which in turn will contribute to economic growth.

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