State Leads in Women-Owned Small Businesses
California has nearly double the number of small, women-owned businesses as any other state, according to a government report released Monday--a reflection of widespread support networks for female entrepreneurs here.
Nationwide, women-owned businesses increased 43% from 1987 to 1992, far more than the 26% increase for small businesses as a whole, according to the report. Women’s small businesses made up more than a third of the nation’s 17.3 million small businesses.
The report was presented to President Clinton on Monday during a meeting with 30 female business association representatives, members of the White House Interagency Committee on Women’s Business Enterprise and the National Women’s Business Council. The statistics were culled from 1992 Commerce Department data by the Census Bureau.
According to the study, California’s women-owned businesses represented 13.6% of the nation’s small businesses. Women-owned small businesses accounted for $84 billion in sales statewide in 1992, 20.8% of California’s total small-business receipts and more than a third of the state’s 2.3 million small businesses.
“There is no stronger women’s business community than in Los Angeles,” said Amy Millman, executive director of the National Women’s Business Council, which requested the report. “That’s where all the energy is coming from.”
The report included sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations, but excluded the typically larger C corporations. Unlike C corporations, S corporations enjoy certain tax benefits of partnerships.
California led the nation with 801,487 of these women-owned small businesses, followed by Texas with 414,179, New York with 395,944, Florida with 352,048 and Illinois with 250,613. Only 15 other states had more than 100,000 women-owned small businesses.
Those familiar with California’s business environment said the high number of women’s businesses here could not be attributed solely to the fact that the state enjoys a huge population advantage over other states.
Judith Luther-Wilder, co-CEO of the California-based nonprofit Women Inc., said women’s businesses have flourished here because the state has “literally hundreds” of organizations that provide training, networking and support for female entrepreneurs. Among them, she cited the American Women’s Economic Development Corp., the National Assn. of Women Business Owners, the Women’s Referral Service and Enterprising Women.
Furthermore, corporate downsizing in the recession-racked state has prompted women and men alike to start their own firms.
And many immigrant women with limited English-language skills, particularly from Asia, have started grocery stores, dry cleaners, fingernail parlors, beauty salons and other small companies statewide. San Diego, Fresno, Long Beach, Santa Ana and Stockton in particular have seen growth in such businesses, Luther-Wilder said.
Karen Caplan, president of NAWBO Los Angeles, added that the corporate glass ceiling also may prompt women to leave employee positions and start their own businesses.
Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, said California provides more opportunities for female entrepreneurs than other states in the fields of entertainment, management consulting and apparel. “As long as the service or product is good, people don’t care if it’s offered by a man or a woman,” Kyser said.
The federal report also contained a first-ever nationwide count of women-owned C corporations, which added 518,000 more women-owned firms to the nation’s tally of 6.4 million women-owned business, both large and small. They represent 34% of U.S. business firms with $1.6 trillion in revenues and 13.2 million employees, the study reported.
Betsy Myers, director of the White House Office of Women’s Initiatives and Outreach, said the report will enable the White House to refine government programs that aid female business owners.
