Women and Entrepreneurship Report Released
In honor of International Women's Day, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has released the GEM 2004 REPORT ON WOMEN AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP, stating:
"GEM is the voice of entrepreneurial research, policy and impact across the globe. The showcase event in the GEM yearly cycle is the annual Launch Conference which introduces the research findings of the previous year. This year's Launch Conference, held in London on 20 January 2005, attracted an audience of some 200 business people, entrepreneurs, policymakers, diplomats, journalists and academics from around the world."
Some of the key findings in the report include:
"In 2004, GEM estimated that about 73 million people are involved in starting a new business in the 34 countries that participated in the study. Of those, about 30 million are women. The average level of female total entrepreneurial activity (TEA) rate across the 34 GEM countries varied from 39.1% in Peru to 1.2% in Japan.
In every country in our study, men are more active in entrepreneurship than women. The largest gap occurs in middle income nations where men are 75% more likely than women to be active entrepreneurs, compared to 33% in high-income countries and 41% in low-income countries.
Overall, opportunity is the dominant motivation for women’s entrepreneurship, similar to men. Nonetheless, many more women than men are involved in entrepreneurship because of the lack of alternative job opportunities.
In low and middle income countries, the peak years to become involved in entrepreneurial activities for women are ages 25-34. In high income countries, on the other hand, the peak years for women are ages 35-44.
In low income countries, the majority of entrepreneurially active women (54%) have not completed a secondary degree. In high income countries, on the other end, women with post secondary education are the most likely (34%) to start a new business.
As in the case of men, and regardless of per capita income, the largest majority of women involved in starting a new business hold other jobs.
Regardless of per capita income, a strong positive and significant correlation exists between knowing other entrepreneurs and a woman’s involvement with starting a new business."
The Launch agenda and speaker's presentations are available for downloading by following this link.
