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A significant increase in the number of women running Australian small businesses over the past decade has been highlighted as a win – but there’s still more that needs to be done, according to the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO).
It’s released new research that reveals 66 per cent of newly formed Australian businesses in the last decade were founded by women, a trend that is a part of a 46 per cent increase in female business owners over the past 20 years.
But even with this positive trend in women-led Australian businesses, access to capital still represents a major hurdle for women-run businesses. The most recent survey conducted by the ASBFEO, which surveyed more than 600 Australian female business owners, concurred with this.
It found that 43 per cent of respondents identified access to capital as a central barrier for business growth.
Ombudsman Bruce Billson vehemently believes enhancing the ability for prospective female business owners to access much-needed capital is pivotal in energising and rebounding the national economic recovery.
“Women’s economic empowerment is key to our national recovery after an incredibly challenging couple of years,” he said.
“Research by Asialink suggests boosting the number of female business owners to equal that of men, could add between $70 billion and $135 billion to our economy.”
In the real estate industry, certain parallels can be drawn to the disparity between male and female leadership.
A 2018 report from the Australian Property Council found that 79 per cent of women in real estate have a desire to progress into leadership roles, with just 28 per cent believing this level of progress is achievable.
The same report concluded that women “hit a glass ceiling at management level” with regards to achieving promotion to a leadership position. This claim is backed by statistics, which outlined that 52 per cent of non-leadership roles in real estate are filled by women, as opposed to just 25.9 per cent of leadership positions.
What this suggests is that in a similar vein to how more needs to be done to increase the access to capital for potential female small-business owners, more also needs to be done to encourage more female real estate leaders and franchisees.
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