Women-owned businesses in Utah are growing in number, not size News, sports, jobs

It’s been 25 years since 1997 – the Utah Women’s Business Center’s comprehensive survey of women entrepreneurs in the state.

This year, the Women’s Business Center conducted an in-depth survey of female business owners to see what changes might have occurred in a quarter century.

In 1988, the Women’s Business Ownership Act was enacted to allow women to apply for commercial bank loans without a male relative as a co-signer.

Nationally, more than 114 percent of female entrepreneurs are women than in 1997, but women-owned businesses employ an average of fewer than 10 employees—generally, they’re considered just as productive as male-owned businesses, according to a new study. , revenue growth, job creation and number of years in business.

Utah women continue to rank 39th out of the 50 states in 2021, according to the study, when it comes to the disparity in employment rates between men and women.

“This white paper explores the experiences of current female business owners to learn from them how Utah is moving forward,” said Susan Madsen, director of the Utah Women and Leadership Project at Utah State University.

The findings included:

• Based on the number of women-owned businesses, national data ranks Utah 45th among other states, with 16 percent of the state’s businesses owned by women. However, Utah ranks second when looking at women-owned businesses over the past two decades, with a 77 percent increase.
• 65.6% of respondents owned 100% of their business. The most common industries among all respondents were advertising, business services and information technology (16.5%); Agriculture, Construction, Engineering and Manufacturing (15.3%); and food service, entertainment and travel (14.9%).
• A large number of women (47.2%) spend more than 40 hours a week on their business. Women who worked longer hours tended to be older, had fewer children at home, and owned their businesses longer.
• Most women (44.3%) described themselves as self-employed with no employees. Those with employees typically reported having one to five employees.
• One-third (34.3%) of female marketers estimate their total sales for 2022 will be less than $50,000. A large number of women (41.7%) predict their total salary will be less than $25,000 in 2022.
• Most women rely on personal savings, credit cards, and friends and family to start, maintain, and expand their businesses.
• Women rate their main reasons for starting a business as “to create something”, to be independent, earn more money and have more flexibility.
• In an open-ended question, women identified the need to balance life responsibilities, gender-related issues (eg not being taken seriously) and lack of financial support and training resources as the biggest barriers.
• Women described the main benefits of being a female business owner as soft skills that build relationships and access to the support of women-owned organizations.
• The main problems they cited regarding the impact of childcare on their business was balancing work and childcare and access to childcare for themselves or their employees.

There are many resources for female business owners. These include the Utah Women’s Business Center, the State Small Business Loan Initiative and the Small Business Development Centers. organizations that serve women entrepreneurs (eg, Womenpreneurs, She Place); and academic courses and programs offered by public and nonprofit colleges (eg WELift at Utah Valley University).

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