How could we encourage more women to become business founders?
Today, I came across several statistics, and one of them stated that in wealthy countries, there are fewer female founders.
I was especially surprised by this in the case of Scandinavian and Nordic countries, which I’ve always associated with equality. (Also, post-communist countries are the case, but in such countries, people are not "used to starting a business" in general, but that's a slightly different story.)
My main 2 questions are:
How can we encourage women to be more proactive in entrepreneurship?
Do you know of any communities or associations that support and nurture successful female founders?
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Replies
@nithya_kumaran I should create more to become one. 😅 Good nudge, thank you! :D
CourseCorrect
Love this question Nika, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately too. I think one big piece is normalizing imperfect starts. Many women I know (myself included) hesitate to call themselves “founders” until everything feels polished and ready. But most startups begin messy.
We also need more visible stories of women building on their own terms, not just unicorns, but solopreneurs, bootstrappers, and part-time builders. Platforms like Female Founders Alliance, Dreamers & Doers, and The Grand have been doing amazing work in this space.
Curious, do you think the hesitation is more cultural or tied to access to resources like funding, mentorship, etc.?
@dipti_nair I think that the main point is... we live in a patriarchal society. And the role of women is limited to a few things, the most important being giving birth and raising children. In such a case, women are not seen as equal partners for long-term work because their life is interrupted by other life events dedicated to bringing up new generations. Maybe it is easier for us in an online bubble, but we still live in a physical world where things and the majority work like that.
App Finder
I doubt the assertion that "in wealthy countries, there are fewer female founders". That graphic from Statista seems to have a quite arbitrary country selection. If you just look at the 3 largest countries, the US is clearly leading. And while India has a higher share of the female population with "early-stage entrepreneurial activity" than China, the share of all early-stage entrepreneurs that are women is much higher in China than in India, as you see in the source Statista has used (page 44, 45 in https://www.gemconsortium.org/file/open?fileId=51621 from GEM). Also, https://www.mastercard.com/news/media/phwevxcc/the-mastercard-index-of-women-entrepreneurs.pdf ranks United States, New Zealand and Canada best for woman entrepreneurs.
Interestingly, according to the GEM report, Thailand, Mexico and UAE have more female than male early-stage entrepreneurs (although ChatGPT could not confirm this with other sources, and regarding established businesses this is surely not the case), so maybe one should look at these countries to see what's different there.
@konrad_sx Wasn't it meant that the US, New Zealand and Canada have the best conditions? Anyway, it would be great to see/hear what the aspects were that encouraged young women to take the initiative and build something remarkable.
App Finder
@busmark_w_nika Yes, the Mastercard index seems to rank conditions. That report also tries to identify the conditions in specific countries that are effective, see e.g. page 75 for New Zealand.
@konrad_sx "High female representation in business ownership" – we should promote such an approach more. Instead of promoting Tate's brothers.
Serand
Giving women access to mentors who guide them through the process can make starting a business less carry.
@rukhsar_amjad If you know some interesting mentors, feel free to share ;)