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4D. ENTREPRENEURSHIP
38 Eurostat (2018), 'Statistics on small and medium-sized enterprises', available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ statistics-explained/index.php?title=Statistics_on_small_and_medium-sized_enterprises#General_overview
Small and medium size enterprises are the backbone of the EU economy. In 2016, SMEs employed 93 million people, accounting for 67% of total employment in the EU-28 non-financial business sector38. Start-ups are crucial to both equality and growth. In the EU,
women constitute 52% of the total population, but only 34.4% of self-employed workers and 30% of start-up entrepreneurs. Local economies need to tap into women s creativity and entrepreneurial potential to maximise both equality and growth. This can be facilitated for example by supporting women s business centres, such as the Weiberwirtschaft cooperative in Berlin, Germany. Such networks can help women overcome the challenges they face when establishing and running a business, such as limited access to capital and technology, a lack of networks and knowledge resources, limited access to information, discriminatory legal structures, policy obstacles to business ownership and development as well as difficulty reconciling business and family concerns. Learn more about the Weiberwirtschaft in the following video:
In the EU, women constitute 52% of the total population,
but only 34.4% of self-employed workers
and 30% of start-up entrepreneurs.
52%
The WeiberWirtschaft: Europe's largest women's business centre © Genderedlandscape (2021)
48%
