Women’s Entrepreneurship Day is celebrated on the 19th of November, a date set by the UN in 2014 with the aim of drawing special attention to the work of women who have embarked on the adventure of entrepreneurship.
The role of women in the entrepreneurship ecosystem in our country is remarkable and they are responsible for a large part of Spanish social and economic development. However, as in other fields and sectors, the representation of women in entrepreneurial activities is still inferior when compared to that of men. Nevertheless, this disproportion is evolving every year towards more equitable figures.
The philosopher Amelia Valcárcel, when asked what more women want now that they have all their rights recognised, said that women should have the right to half of everything since they make up 49.5% of the world’s population. In the field of entrepreneurship, this proportional representation of men and women has not yet been reached, but it is a gap that is narrowing every year, according to data from GEM Spain.
In 2017, the GEM Special Report on Women’s Entrepreneurship already showed that the gap between female and male entrepreneurs is decreasing. Specifically, the document pointed out that the gender gap in Spain had narrowed by 36% in the last decade. In 2020, the same institution published a report called Mujer Emprendedora (Woman Entrepreneur) outlining that, as was already evident in the international context, women in Spain participate to a lesser extent in the different phases of the entrepreneurship process.
A reading of the data reveals the existence of this gap that we have been referring to, but it also illustrates the gradual transformation of the situation. As we have already mentioned, the reports show that the gap is narrowing every year to such an extent that, according to the latest GEM Report, in 2021 the percentage of women entrepreneurs increased in all phases of the entrepreneurship process.
Specifically, when it comes to recent entrepreneurial activity (TEA), women actually outnumbered men last year, representing 5.6% and 5.4% respectively. The same report shows that the number of women entrepreneurs also outnumbered men in the 18-34 and 35-44 age groups. We can deduce from this that women are starting businesses at a younger age (18-44 years), while men are doing so at increasingly later ages. Moreover, in 2021, the percentage of women entrepreneurs with a university education exceeded that of men in all phases of the entrepreneurship process.
If we look at data from our own tech and innovation ecosystem, the Startup Observatory of the Valencian Community’s 2022 Report carried out by Startup Valencia shows that more than a third of Valencian startups have been founded by women, 36% to be exact. Likewise, 80% of the startups analysed claimed to be committed to gender equality and the empowerment of women as part of the Sustainable Development Goals promoted by the United Nations.
At Startup Valencia, we believe that this data is extremely promising and reaffirms our notion that in the near future women will have their share of representation everywhere, even in the traditionally male-dominated tech and innovation ecosystem. Women entrepreneurs are asserting their role and importance as drivers of the Valencian economy, with entrepreneurial projects that offer a differentiating factor.
In order to boost this transformation, the association organises numerous meetings and activities in which we seek to make the talent of women in our ecosystem more visible, so that it can serve as an inspiration and, at the same time, increase the representation of women in this sector.
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