Key Small Business Statistics - July 2008

How many small business entrepreneurs are women?

There is no easy way to precisely determine the number of entrepreneurs in Canada, much less the number of women entrepreneurs. However, it is possible to estimate the number using available data on self-employment and business ownership.

Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey reports there were 877 000 self-employed women in Canada in 2006, accounting for about one third of all self-employed persons. (Although not all of the self-employed would identify themselves as entrepreneurs, the number of self-employed women provides an upper limit for the number of female entrepreneurs.¹⁰) Between 1996 and 2006, the number of self-employed women grew by 18 percent compared with 14-percent growth in male self-employment.

Another way to count entrepreneurs is through business ownership. Statistics Canada's Survey on Financing of Small and Medium Enterprises distinguishes four types of business ownership based on gender: majority female ownership, equal partnership between male and female owners, minority female ownership and no female ownership.

In the 2004 survey, it was estimated that 47 percent of SMEs had some degree of female ownership in 2004. SMEs with equal partnerships between male and female owners accounted for 20 percent, while 16 percent were majority-owned by females. The degree of female ownership varied by industry, but it is clear that the percentage of female-owned businesses lags behind the percentage of majority male-owned businesses in every industry (Figure 11 ). Professional services industries have the highest share of businesses that are majority-owned by females, at nearly 22 percent, whereas SMEs in agriculture and primary industries have the lowest level, with only 6 percent of businesses majority-owned by females.

Figure 11: Business Ownership Distribution by Gender and Industry, 2004

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Source: Statistics Canada, Survey on Financing of Small and Medium Enterprises, 2004.

The survey showed that SMEs majority-owned by women were less likely than other SMEs to employ more than 20 employees and also started up more recently than firms that are majority-owned by men. Women owners of SMEs also tended to have fewer years of experience in the industries in which they operated compared with their male counterparts.

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10. Some entrepreneurs, especially if they are on the payroll of their own businesses, may not identify themselves as being self-employed; however, this number is likely to be smaller than the number of self-employed who are not entrepreneurs.