Among Italian companies, Those run by women I'm just over one in five: the 22,2%, for a total of 1,345 million companies. Compared to those led by men, women's businesses are more concentrated in the service sector (66,9% against 55,7%), have smaller size (9% are micro-enterprises with up to 96,8 employees, against 94,7% of men's companies) and are more present in Southern Italy (36,8 against 33,7%). This is the identikit that emerges from the V Report on female entrepreneurship presented on Wednesday in Rome and created by Unioncamere in collaboration with the Tagliacarne Study Center and Si.Camera.
Women's businesses have a shorter life
The analysis also shows that female businesses have less ability to survive: three years after their establishment, 79,3% of businesses led by women are still open, against 83,9% of those led by men. After five years, however, the percentage of companies that survive is 68,1 against 74,3%.
Youth and foreign entrepreneurship more common among women
However, it is more common among women youth entrepreneurship, which covers 10,5% of the total companies run by women, against 7,6% found among companies run by men.
The same goes for the foreign-born entrepreneurs: among female enterprises, those led by foreign women are 11,8%, compared to 10,4% of those led by foreign men.
Second quarter numbers
In the second quarter of 2022, compared to the same period of 2021, the number of women's businesses remained substantially stable, growing by 1.727 units (+0,1%). The comparison with last year shows an increase in women's businesses above all in industry (+ 0,3%) and in services (+0,4%), among joint-stock companies (+2,9%), in the South (+0,6%) and among foreign companies (+2,6%).
Investments
According to an analysis by Unioncamere, the post-pandemic recovery has convinced a further 14% of women-owned businesses to start invest in digital (compared to 11% of men's companies) and 12% to invest in green (against 9%). To these must be added, to an extent equivalent to non-female enterprises, 31% of companies that have increased or kept constant investments in digital technologies in recent years, and 22% who have done the same in environmental sustainability (against 23% of other companies). Half of the women's businesses, however, have stopped investing or even rule out wanting to start them in the near future.
Unioncamere's comment
"Faced with the great challenges posed by the PNRR to the national production system, Italian women at the head of a company are responding positively, accelerating in terms of digital investments and in more environmentally friendly technologies - comments the president of Unioncamere, Andrew Priest – But this inclination must be supported and helped. In fact, women entrepreneurs feel the need to improve training in the new 4.0 and green technologies both at school and university level, to have easier access to financial resources, to simplify administrative procedures. And they also ask for a strong and constant awareness-raising activity on these issues, to better understand their scope and effects. On their way, women entrepreneurs will find the Chambers of Commerce, which have never failed to support all those women who are already engaged or who aspired to engage in the business world”.
