If it sometimes seems like the odds are stacked against women in business, then the figures back it up: globally, women make up over 50% of the population but own only 1% of the total wealth. This spurs many women to turn to self-employment and entrepreneurship, seeking loans for their nascent businesses. But again, women have been shown, according to a United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) study, to only have access to 3% of bank loans.
WEgate, the European gateway for women's entrepreneurship, published its 2021 WEbarometer report and confirmed UNECE’s findings. Less than 25% of its respondents rated the environment for accessing finance as good or better, many of them self-fund or get finance from family sources and very few of the survey’s 316 respondents across 25 countries found that maternity leave legislation is supportive of women starting a business in their country.
Other bars are access to flexible working and child care. Working mothers report child care concerns as a top reason for voluntarily leaving the workforce with 34% stating that childcare expense or availability was a leading factor, according to a report from McKinsey.
But it is of long-term benefit to tech companies to make sure that women are properly included in the workplace. Equality, diversity and inclusion at work leads to more innovation and better business performance up to 87% of the time – researchers have found that when diverse workplace teams of three or more people make decisions, they outperform individual decision-makers. Diverse teams make decisions faster too, up to a 60% improvement on decision-making.
Continue reading: https://tech.eu/2022/06/17/why-female-friendly-tech-matters
WEgate, the European gateway for women's entrepreneurship, published its 2021 WEbarometer report and confirmed UNECE’s findings. Less than 25% of its respondents rated the environment for accessing finance as good or better, many of them self-fund or get finance from family sources and very few of the survey’s 316 respondents across 25 countries found that maternity leave legislation is supportive of women starting a business in their country.
Other bars are access to flexible working and child care. Working mothers report child care concerns as a top reason for voluntarily leaving the workforce with 34% stating that childcare expense or availability was a leading factor, according to a report from McKinsey.
But it is of long-term benefit to tech companies to make sure that women are properly included in the workplace. Equality, diversity and inclusion at work leads to more innovation and better business performance up to 87% of the time – researchers have found that when diverse workplace teams of three or more people make decisions, they outperform individual decision-makers. Diverse teams make decisions faster too, up to a 60% improvement on decision-making.
Continue reading: https://tech.eu/2022/06/17/why-female-friendly-tech-matters
