High school graduate, thirty-five to forty years old, resident in the Centre-South and until recently employed or manager in a company, often a housewife. This is the identikit of the new entrepreneur that emerges from the Unioncamere survey on the "real" new businesses set up last year, ie those businesses that are not the result of transformations of existing businesses, but completely new initiatives. An army of 53 companies (28,6% of the initiatives totally open in 2013) which reveal the profile of a female Italy which, with more commitment than men, seeks an improvement in their working situation or an answer in companies to job loss.
The survey - together with the data relating to the first quarter of 2014 from the Observatory on female entrepreneurship - was presented today in Salerno on the occasion of the first stage of the "Giro d'Italia of women who do business", the Unioncamere initiative and the Committees for Female Entrepreneurship which has been traveling through Italy for seven years to encourage discussion on female enterprise issues. After the opening stage, the Giro will reach Pordenone, Lecce, Grosseto, Taranto, Alessandria, Prato, Ferrara, Treviso and La Spezia (the complete calendar of the event is available on www.unioncamere.gov.it).
“Women – said the President of Unioncamere, Ferruccio Dardanello – are a potential pool of entrepreneurs which the country cannot give up and which, on the contrary, must valorise. With targeted interventions and strengthening the institutional support that the Chambers of Commerce have ensured to date. The Committees for female entrepreneurship, within the Chambers, are service centers and indispensable points of reference for women's businesses, for aspiring female entrepreneurs and for all women who find themselves obliged or willing to reconvert their professional life. It is thanks to this work made of closeness, competence and effectiveness that, starting today, the Committees are also the information terminals of the Government, which has chosen them as territorial offices to promote the Special Section "Presidency of the Council of Ministers - Department Equal opportunities" of the Guarantee Fund for SMEs", the recently activated industrial policy instrument in favor of companies led by women. It is recognition of a system that works and that needs to be further strengthened in all its components."
Compared to the male universe, the Unioncamere survey shows that women who do business are more concentrated in the under 40 age group (60% against 55 of men); have a higher average level of education (20,8% have a degree in their pocket, against 16,1% of male entrepreneur colleagues, 46,1% at least a diploma, while men stop at 44,7) . In addition to a higher average level of training, women who start businesses also show more qualified work experience: 18,5% in fact have experience as an employee or manager behind them, against 14,3% of men.
And even in the case of an absolute lack of experience in the world of work, such as for the student category, the share of women (6,5%) is higher than that of men (4,9). From a professional point of view, on the other hand, the distance from men is clear: only 6,9% of women had a previous and different experience as an entrepreneur or self-employed worker (15,2% among men), and only 3,5 .5% were self-employed (86,7% for men). Lastly, the most fragile organizational profile remains to characterize the new female enterprises, given the very high incidence (XNUMX%) of the percentage of initiatives that are born individually.
