California No. 1 : Women Own 24% of U.S. Businesses--Study

WASHINGTON — Women own nearly one-fourth of the nation’s businesses, although their companies generate only one-tenth of all receipts, the Census Bureau said Wednesday.

A new analysis of the 1982 U.S. Economic Census found that women owned 2.88 million businesses--23.9% of all individual proprietorships, partnerships and small business corporations operating at that time.

But the $98.3 billion in receipts that their companies generated amounted to only 10.2% of all income from those types of companies, the study found.

California had the largest number of women-owned companies, 396,294, followed by Texas with 220,221 and New York with 189,675.

The report did not include large corporations--those with more than 25 shareholders--because researchers were not able to determine which of those were owned primarily by women.

Personal Services Most Common

Of the companies owned by women, the vast majority--2.66 million--were individual proprietorships. There were 134,184 partnerships and 89,056 small corporations.

About half of the women-owned companies had gross receipts of less than $5,000, the report said, while a minuscule 0.3% of them brought in $1 million or more.

Personal services, such as laundries and cleaning services, beauty shops, photographers and baby-sitting services, were the most common business for women to be engaged in, with 419,113 women-owned businesses in this category.

Real estate agencies were second with 225,551 women-owned businesses, followed by health services, such as nurses, doctors and dentists, with 128,389.

Rounding out the 10 largest women-owned activities were eating and drinking places, 66,811; special trade contractors, such as plumbers, heating and masonry contractors, roofers and so forth, 47,219; food stores, 37,635; apparel and accessory stores, 29,130; wholesale trade, non-durable goods, 22,231; auto dealers and service stations, 14,353, and wholesale trade, durable goods, 12,021.