Surge in female entrepreneurs narrows UK gender gap

A surge in the number of women starting businesses in the UK has narrowed the so-called “enterprise gap” between male and female company owners in the past decade, according to research published on Wednesday.

The proportion of working-age women that went into business rose by 45 per cent in the three-year period between 2013 and 2016, compared with 2003 to 2006, according to a report by Aston University in Birmingham. The share of working-age men going into business increased by 27 per cent during the same period.

However, British men remain nearly twice as likely as women to be entrepreneurs, with 10.4 per cent of working-age men identified as entrepreneurs compared with 5.5 per cent of women between 2013 and 2016. One decade earlier, 8.2 per cent of men identified as entrepreneurs, compared with 3.8 per cent of women.

The research is based on data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, an annual survey of 10,000 people. It defines entrepreneurship as any attempt at new business or venture creation, such as self-employment, or the expansion of an existing business by an individual or team.

Karen Bonner, senior researcher at Aston Business School, said that having children — which once led many women to give up work completely — is now a key factor for people who choose self-employment, with many women surveyed saying “they wanted flexibility and freedom”.

The survey shows British women who started businesses wanted more control over their work. Some 97 per cent of women polled cited freedom to adapt their approach to work as a key reason for starting their own businesses, while 85 per cent mentioned flexible working conditions.

The highest rates of female entrepreneurship are in cities such as London, Birmingham and Leicester, with large graduate and immigrant populations, she said, but added a severe so-called gender “enterprise gap” remains in some parts of the country.

The smallest gap is in the West Midlands, where there are 74 new female entrepreneurs for every 100 of their male counterparts.

Women in south-east England are the most likely to start up a business, with 7 per cent describing themselves as early-stage entrepreneurs. Just 2.8 per cent of women in north-east England said the same.

Ms Bonner said women may not choose entrepreneurship in parts of the country where there are “safer” employment options in the public sector that allow them to work more flexibly.

Emma Jones, founder of Enterprise Nation, a support group for entrepreneurs, said 63 per cent of its 72,000 members are female, and about two-thirds of those attending its events are women.

Ms Jones said female-run small businesses across the UK are “powering” online retailers such as Amazon Marketplace and Not on the High Street.

But she questioned whether many female entrepreneurs would be able to scale their so-called “lifestyle businesses”, saying: “I would like to see how many are still around and have grown in a few years’ time.”

Rosie Ginday, a 33-year-old chef, has succeeded in growing her Miss Macaroon business since she started it in a college kitchen in 2011. Ms Ginday, who trained in a Michelin-starred restaurant, sells macaroons to wholesale and individual customers. She opened a prosecco and macaroon bar, in Birmingham last year, and is looking to expand across the UK. She employs seven people but runs the business, which generates £350,000 in annual turnover, as a social enterprise, using profits for charitable work.

When asked why she started her own business, Ms Ginday said: “People of my generation do not expect to be in a job for long. With the effects of austerity and wages not growing in line with inflation to cover living costs, people feel they’ve got a better chance doing something by themselves.”

There has been an steady increase in early-stage entrepreneurship in the UK for both men and women since 2010.

Until 2010, a long-run average of about 6 per cent of all working-age people — men and women — identified as entrepreneurs. The share of working-age Britons identifying as entrepreneurs rose to 8.8 per cent in 2016, the highest in Europe but trailing the US, where 12.6 per cent of people are business owners.