Women entrepreneurs are vital to the makeup of the business community and there is a growing body of evidence highlighti ng the economic benefits of encouraging more women into business.
It is esti mated that around 21 per cent of Scotland’s 339,000 SMEs are majority-led by women and a further 22 per cent are equally-led by women and men. Men are sti ll almost twice as likely to start businesses as women.
While the under-representati on of women in entrepreneurship is an internati onal concern, Scotland’s rates of female business ownership are persistently low relati ve to other high-income countries. The scale of Scotland’s enterprise ‘gap’ is illustrated by esti mates suggesti ng that Scotland would have an additi onal 108,480 businesses if women’s business ownership rates equalled those of men. This would equate to a 32 per cent increase in Scotland’s business base.