Women in Scotland have achieved a “landmark moment” in business, with the number of female entrepreneurs matching that of men for the first time. A report reveals that women started and ran new businesses at almost the same rate as men last year.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), an annual measure of entrepreneurship, found that 8.6% of working-age women in Scotland were running or setting up a new business in 2023, compared to 9.8% of men. This is described as “statistical parity” in the report. In comparison, 7.2% of women and 10.5% of men were doing so in 2022.
The report, compiled by the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Strathclyde, indicated that 300,000 people in Scotland were involved in early-stage entrepreneurial activity in 2023. The fact that women constituted roughly half of this number was termed “momentous” by one of the report’s authors.
Professor Sreevas Sahasranamam of the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow told the sources, “It is a landmark moment because for the first time ever we are seeing statistical parity between early-stage male and female entrepreneurial activity in Scotland. This is quite momentous because just four years ago, in 2020, there was an almost four percentage point gap between male and female entrepreneurship rates.”
However, Professor Sahasranamam noted that the overall climate for creating business opportunities could be improved. “It is worth highlighting that a panel of entrepreneurship experts judged the context for entrepreneurship in Scotland to be generally mediocre, with the level of support for women’s entrepreneurship worryingly evaluated as ‘less than satisfactory,’ scoring under three out of 10,” he said.
Genna Masterton transitioned from her career as a primary teacher to an educational tech entrepreneur. Passionate about creating better, happier lives for children, she registered her company Kinoro, an online coaching tool for adults to help children, in March this year. Inspired by her teaching days, she wanted her pupils to be ready to learn and motivated, and her coaching tool was born out of frustration that she couldn’t help every child all the time. So, she moved from teaching to tech.
Her first few years as an entrepreneur have been challenging and rewarding. “The highs are when you find yourself in the right environment with people who don’t underestimate your ambition and want you to become an investable woman. When you do something innovative and create a business that can scale internationally, there’s no stopping you,” she said.
Genna realized she was taken seriously, with support to make connections with investors worldwide. However, she was aware that her male counterparts might have one meeting to raise investment, whereas it might take her an average of 100 meetings. She added, “You either give up and don’t try, or you make it happen so that the women coming after me or alongside me, we make it easier for those coming next.”
The hope is for her business to go global.
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