One of the biggest issues associated with the subject of women in enterprise is the lack of gender disaggregated information available. Currently, the number of female entrepreneurs and primary decision-makers cannot be fully extracted from national and central sources of data such Companies House or the HMRC.

Capturing this information is vital in terms of quantifying and differentiating the value that women entrepreneurs provide to the economy and its citizens. Without these figures, it is difficult to extract any concrete data behind the shortfall in female entrepreneurship or to feed into legislative programs to improve the case for women’s businesses.

There is evidence showing that women in enterprise are more sustainable in times of economic recession and are stronger candidates for long-term credit. Legislation can offer much-needed amendments to current data-collection policies to ensure that such information is captured and used effectively.

NEW POLICY PAPER:

Steady as she grows

Dr Rebecca Harding, Delta Economics

Growth-oriented women entrepreneurs invest as much as their male counterparts in their businesses, produce as much in the way of wealth and value as their male counterparts and are more confident about their capacity to deal with the business challenges that lie ahead. This study of 1800 founders of businesses between 2 and 10 years old and with growth-oriented turnovers of between £250,000 and £20m takes on some of the stereotypes about all women's businesses being smaller and less scalable. It also suggests that women who want to grow their business do not under-capitalize their companies. This is a first go at understanding the differences and similarities between entrepreneurs who have set their companies on a growth footing and the results suggest strongly that support for women entrepreneurs will have real returns in terms of value creation.

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