tailieunhanh - OVERCOMING THE GENDER GAP: WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS AS ECONOMIC DRIVERS

How many women build high-growth companies of this caliber? To date, there have not been comprehensive studies that isolate the ―true high-growth/high-impact‖ bracket with statistical rigor and allow for gender comparisons. But, in a sense, statistical studies are not really needed here. So few women are operating at the highest levels of entrepreneurship that one can get a feeling for how scarce they are by the informal exercise of sitting down and trying to name them. A list of America’s high-impact women entrepreneurs would usually begin with the widely known names in entertainment and news media: Oprah Winfrey,. | Ewing Marion KAUFFMAN Foundation OVERCOMING THE GENDER GAP WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS AS ECONOMIC DRIVERS Lesa Mitchell Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation September 2011 Ewing Marion KAUFFMAN Foundation 2011 by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. All rights reserved. 1 OVERCOMING THE GENDER GAP WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS AS ECONOMIC DRIVERS This paper explores the intersection of two issues that often are thought of separately the need for sustained economic recovery in the United States and the status of women s entrepreneurship. Despite recent gains women still lag behind men on key measures of startup activity and their firms tend not to grow or prosper nearly as much. Typically this is seen as a women s issue. It is framed as a problem to be dealt with for the benefit of women in the interest of gender equality. In fact it is an economic issue that affects everyone. Research has shown that startups especially high-growth startups are the keys to job creation and leadership in new industries. With nearly half of the workforce and more than half of our college students now being women their lag in building high-growth firms has become a major economic deficit. The nation has fewer jobs and less strength in emerging industries than it could if women s entrepreneurship were on par with men s. Women capable of starting growth companies may well be our greatest under-utilized economic resource. And what would it take to develop the resource more fully We at the Kauffman Foundation hope this paper will help to stimulate new thinking on the subject. The following themes run throughout - While every entrepreneur big or small helps the economy the emphasis here is on those who start high-growth companies which help the most. - More women s startups need to be aimed at growth targets far above the oft-cited benchmark of 1 million in revenues. There is a particular need for innovative transformative new firms that can grow to serve global markets. - Many though not all high-growth firms