Los Angeles, CA – The American economy has heavily relied on entrepreneurship, particularly small business. A “small business” is defined as an independently-owned business with fewer than 500 employees. It has been noted that small businesses makeup 99.9 percent of all firms and creates about 66 percent of new jobs. However, despite the significance of small businesses on the economy, there is a persistent entrepreneurship gender gap, as well as pay gap and underrepresentation in certain industries. Seek Business Capital conducted a study on gender representation in female-owned start-ups and analysed data, from the U.S. Census Bureau American Survey of Entrepreneurs, to determine U.S. cities with most female entrepreneurs and the most likely industries to have female entrepreneurs.
As compared to male entrepreneurs, there is a smaller percentage of female entrepreneurs and fewer start-ups. As of now, only 24.5 percent of start-ups in their first two years are owned by women, as per the American Survey of Entrepreneurs. Jared Lindzon, a journalist focusing on social justice issues in tech, pointed that while the situation has gotten better for female entrepreneurs, as compared to ten or five years ago, there is still a huge gender gap in entrepreneurship. He stated: “There are a lot of factors that contribute to the gender gap amongst female founders, ranging from societal factors like unconscious bias to a lack of representation within the business community to a venture capital ecosystem that is heavily weighted towards men.”
Lindzon’s word is backed by a marginal difference in hard statistics between years 2007 and 2016. There has been a 23 percent increase from the 909,661 female-owned firms in 2007 leading to a total number of 1,118,863 in 2016. In contrast, there has only been a 6.3 percent increase in male-owned first. Similarly, there has been a 24 percent gain in the number of paid employees at these firms, which went from 7.5 million to 9.3 million over the same time period. Furthermore, female-owned start-up businesses employ more than half a million people and manage to generate more than $56 billion in annual revenue.
At industries level, the highest percentage of female-owned start-ups are in sectors of healthcare and educational services while construction and agriculture industries have the lowest percentage. Yet, in the health care and social assistance sector, there is almost an even divide between male and female-owned businesses; the former consisting of 21,000 while the latter comprises of 20,000 women-owned firms. The educational services sector has a similar case with an equal split between male and female start-ups.
At national level, the geographic distribution of female-owned firms shows Missouri and Alaska with the highest percentage, while Idaho, Louisiana and Maine consist of the lowest percentage of female entrepreneurs.
The study by Seek Business Capital focuses on lower scale distribution regarding which metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) have most female entrepreneurs, as well as which industries within those areas are thriving the most for women-owned businesses. They are ranked according to the percentages of female-owned start-ups in these areas, with the lowest at 25.6 percent and the highest at 45.2 percent.
20. Tampa – St. Petersburg – Clearwater, FL Metro Area
19. San Francisco – Oakland – Hayward, CA Metro Area
18. Portland – Vancouver – Hillsboro, OR – WA Metro Area
17. Houston – The Woodlands – Sugar Land, TX Metro Area
16. Seattle – Tacoma – Bellevue, WA Metro Area
15. Atlanta – Sandy Springs – Roswell, GA Metro Area
14. Denver – Aurora – Lakewood, CO Metro Area
13. Los Angeles – Long Beach – Anaheim, CA Metro Area
12. Richmond, VA Metro Area
11. San Jose – Sunnyvale – Santa Clara, CA Metro Area
10. Baltimore – Columbia – Towson, MD Metro Area
9. Salt Lake City, UT Metro Area
8. Washington – Arlington – Alexandria, DC – VA – MD – WV Metro Area
7. Kansas City, MO – KS Metro Area
6. Indianapolis – Carmel – Anderson, IN Metro Area
5. San Diego – Carlsbad, CA Metro Area
4. Hartford – West Hartford – East Hartford, CT Metro Area
3. Providence – Warwick, RI – MA Metro Area
2. Austin – Round Rock, TX Metro Area
1. St. Louis, MO – IL Metro Area
St. Louis, at 1st rank, consists of about 45.2% of start-ups that are women-owned, with the total number of women-owned firms at 2,726 and gross sales at $150-500 million. The most active industries sector for female entrepreneurs, in St. Louis, is health care and social assistance. Baltimore – Columbia – Towson, at 10th rank, comprises of 28.3 percent of start-ups which are female-owned, with the number of all female-owned businesses at 1,101 and gross sales at $150-500 million. The most active industry in MD Metro Area is retail trade. Similarly, Tampa – St. Petersburg – Clearwater, at 20th rank, has 25.6% percentage of start-ups that are female-owned, with the total number of female-owned firms at 1,608 and gross sales at $150-500 million. The most active industry for female entrepreneurs is in professional, scientific and technical services.
Overall, out of 20MSAs, eight of them have professional, scientific and technical services as the most active industries for female entrepreneurs. The next most active industry for female entrepreneurs is health care and social assistance, in six MSAs. For the remaining ones, two of them have the real estate industry, two have non-public services, one has retail trade, and one has administrative industry as the most active for women-owned firms.
About the company:
Seek Business Capital is a one-stop company for consulting services and funding procurement to small businesses across America. The aim of the company is to provide a solution to the most important and basic issue when it comes to start-ups: quick access to proper financing. One of the principles of Seek Business Capital is to help out new business owners and leading them through the process of achieving the best possible position for their business to obtain proper financing. Their Funding Procurement service enables the company to provide the start-ups with a Funding Estimate within a couple of hours, as well as same day Funding approvals.
Media ContactCompany Name: Seek CapitalContact Person: Jonathan ZachariasEmail: Send EmailCity: Los AngelesState: CA 90048Country: United StatesWebsite: https://www.seekcapital.com/blog/cities-with-the-most-female-entrepreneurs/
