Abstract
Women are going into business today in big numbers. As we heard this summer in testimony to the House of Representatives Committee on Small Business, women are starting businesses at a rate 2-3 times that of men. By the year 2000, women may be half the business owners in this country. As women, however, the businesses we head up tend to be small, sole proprietorships that generate only a fraction (one-tenth at last estimate) of the gross receipts of our male counterparts. What are the issues embedded in these statistics? Do women operate smaller businesses because they want to, or because the vision and resources need to expand in order to allow the businesses to grow? What kinds of economic development intermediaries will be most effective in working with these emerging businesses? The values and issues are in some way profoundly different for women-owned businesses.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.