Women owned-businesses: Canada needs more female entrepreneurs

By Hadaf Zubi Special to The Toronto Star
Tuesday January 29, 2013

Of the 2.4 million businesses registered in Canada at the end of 2011, 1.1 million were small businesses, and they employed 48% of Canadians in the private sector.

Industry Canada’s most recent estimates put the proportion of women-owned small businesses at 17%, which would represent about 187,000 firms.  Since 2001 the proportion of Canadian women employed in senior management positions has risen 5%, and the proportion employed in natural and applied sciences has risen 10%.

The proportion in women in the workforce stayed virtually the same, so it is surprising that even though the number of professional women employed in Canada has risen since 2001, the ratio of self-employed women to men has hovered around a 35-65 split.  With more and more women working in professional occupations, what are the major obstacles holding them back from starting businesses of their own, and what can be changed?

The University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management’s “Taskforce for Women’s Business Growth” 2011report discusses some of the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs, such as the absence of a national women’s entrepreneurial strategy, a lack of supplier diversity initiatives, and a shortage of commercial lending.  The resolution of these issues would enable more women to form small businesses, so what is being done to fix these problems?

Canada lacks a coordinated national women’s economic development strategy.  As the Telfer report suggests, “(A) national strategy would support increased funding to existing women-focused small business training programs and program expansion in those regions that do not currently support such programs, including Quebec, Southern Ontario and Northern Canada.” Read full article>>