Women’s empowerment has taken center stage in 2014 as more businesses, societies, and countries engage in women’s entrepreneurship. They gradually understand what institutions from the World Bank to Coca-Cola already know: that women are crucial to economic development around the globe. Women are now as apt as men to consider the business prospects surrounding them. In Africa and much of Asia, women’s apprehension of market loss rates is equal to or lower than men’s. Women believe themselves to be good innovators. In developed countries, in particular, the opportunities provided by women entrepreneurs help to widen markets and improve job prospects.
However, amid change, the problem is relevant to the developing world because of the problems that exist and the fact that the gender gap remains a significant issue. This is not a developed world issue, rather it’s a global question. There are only about 10 countries in the world where entrepreneurship is the same for both men and women. The concern is that it focuses on women in low-wage and domestically-focused industries with poor opportunities for economic and business growth, which tend to understand the gender pay gap.
Focusing on these industries often reduces funding prospects, with banks finding them to be less of investment risk. Grown clarified that small and medium-sized businesses are especially important because they have a job-generating role in all economies around the world. Encouraging more women to own small and medium-sized businesses improves job opportunities. Yet there is a possibility for much greater global development. When women cross into male-dominated industries, they can gain three times as much as they can in historically female-dominated industries.
How Women Entrepreneurs Can Transform the Global Marketplace?
By empowering women to join male-dominated sectors — and thus shifting the culture of financial lenders and creating new possibilities for women to study, expand and establish entrepreneurial enterprises — women in developed countries will avoid poverty and boost their country’s economic status. Taking a look at all of the co-occurring variables that generate a growing demand for more women entrepreneurs in the globalized economy.
Growth of Economy
There are only seven countries in the world where men and women own companies at the same time. Women own far fewer companies than men in most countries. Also, in countries where women own a significant proportion of businesses, they prefer to operate at a lower degree than men-owned companies. In the United States, for example, women own approximately 30% of the firms currently running, but only hire around 6% of the workforce.
Bringing more women entrepreneurs into the market also clearly provides a possibility for more profitable firms. In general, corporate ownership is not a zero-sum game; one corporation that is profitable is not necessarily forcing another out of corporate. Women could be able to startup companies that respond to a different clientele or demographic than their men equivalents. Overall, this leads to increased economic growth and prosperity within a region.
Reduction in Poverty Rates
Organizations have found out that entrepreneurship can be a form of empowering women living below the poverty line around the world. By reducing obstacles to investment (credit, schooling, legal constraints on the property), women are able to earn cash, fight for their own freedom, and take on a more comprehensive social role in their society. Since many women are still guardians, shattering poverty in women’s lives still serves to benefit children in nations that are dealing with youth insecurity. Because eliminating obstacles to entrepreneurship is often easier than overcoming established religious-based cultural biases, encouraging the economic development of women entrepreneurs is also a more advocacy-friendly aim.
An Innovative Approach
Women’s companies are also subject to an especially interesting double norm. Organizations such as the United Nations are known to be much more creative, but local investors also deem them too dangerous to participate in due to the increased risk of failure. It is important to remember that no studies have indicated that women-owned companies are more likely to fail than businesses owned by men.
Why are women more creative than their male counterparts? There are several different hypotheses put forward, from women having access to various niche markets than men, to have a different position in society and thus different needs than men, to actually possessing a different sense of utility. Whatever the underlying cause, it is clear that women entrepreneurs have a powerful and dynamic perspective that will help the continued growth of a robust global economy as we press forward into the 21st century.
More Investments Made in Local Economy
According to an entrepreneur, Tory Burch, women in developing markets have returned as much as 90% of their earnings to their local economy. The VP of Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network of the World Bank has reported that this proportion is considerably higher than the percentage usually reinvested by individuals.
This may have to do with how men are more likely to spend their earnings on personal consumables, such as cigarettes or alcohol, while women are more likely to buy products from their families or children. Whatever the cause, raising women’s economic buying power obviously serves to sustain the local economy, establishing vibrant islands of power in the global marketplace.
Why is it Important to Support Women Entrepreneurs?
The query that all forward-looking entrepreneurs must pose themselves as the global economy begins to grow and broaden is: what can be done to help women entrepreneurs around the world? We recognize that women face three particular barriers: support, mentoring, and expertise. Through promoting initiatives that help women learn about the field of entrepreneurship, link them with established female entrepreneurs, and help them achieve access to high-quality credit outlets, women can create strong companies, improve their presence in the global economy and local business world, and eventually develop a bigger, better economy.
