The survey was taken exactly a year after the original COGS report and unsurprisingly, thanks to the impact of the economic downturn, the hard financial data reported by entrepreneurs in terms of turnover and jobs created is substantially more negative than the previous findings in 2008.
Despite having difficulty achieving a significant sample of growth-orientated entrepreneurs due to previous participants who were no longer contactable either because they had gone out of business or because their turnovers had dropped to a band not included in the survey, many of the findings from 2008 were replicated in 2009, including the fact that women invest as much in their business start up as men, women experience similar rates of job and turn over growth as men and their turnover growth and job creation expectations also mirror their male equivalent.
The report by Delta highlights evidence that suggests that the turnover of business owned by women dropped by 48% in 2009, compared to an average drop of 18.5% amongst all entrepreneurs. Yet, despite these challenges, women’s businesses are as productive as their male counterparts – creating the same number of jobs and expecting a turnover and the number of jobs they create to grow by just as much.
The report states that due to the findings showing that the recession has taken its toll on women’s enterprises, policy makers need to take action to ensure that women’s businesses are not disproportionately more likely to fail as a result of the current climate.
The report comes to a conclusion which stresses that it is important to view the findings on growth in 2009 while taking the recession into consideration. Women’s businesses in particular have suffered from a general collapse of demand but are not affected massively when access to finance is concerned in comparison to men’s businesses. The research does show however that in spite of this women are now more wary with what the future holds for their business as a result.
However, on a more positive note women’s business have created value and will continue to do so, they create marginally more jobs than men’s businesses and create an identical turnover as a percentage of the initial amounts invested, positive evidence so show that women’s businesses will survive after the struggle of the economic downturn.
To read the report follow this link: http://www.deltaeconomics.com/Uploads/Misc/COGS%2020091.PDF