Women entrepreneurs fare best in the Western states, according to a report by
the Center for Women’s Business Research, a Washington, D.C.-based research
group. The number of women-owned businesses in the top five hot spots—Utah,
Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada and Arizona—grew at an average rate of 28.8 percent,
compared to an average of 14 percent in the rest of the country. Employment
at women-owned businesses in the top five states jumped 76.3 percent and sales
skyrocketed 116.9 percent, compared to a 29.9 percent increase in employment and
a 40.9 percent sales increase elsewhere. All five states showed strong
overall business growth and market expansion and they had a greater than average
degree of federal financial support for small business and lower than
average wages. Women, as well as men, tended to take advantage of those
conditions, says Myra M. Hart, chair of the center and a professor at Harvard
Business School. “Women business owners in these states are taking full
advantage of the special opportunities presented by a vibrant, growing economy,
a relatively low-cost workforce and government programs providing access to
capital, training and technical support,” she says. “Not only are they growing
at twice the rate of all women-owned business in the United States—their
businesses are expanding in employment and revenues by more than two and a half
times the rate of all U.S. women-owned enterprises.” The figures, which cover
the years 1997 to 2002, are in the report Location, Location, Location, produced
by the Center for Women’s Business Research and underwritten by Wells Fargo
& Co. The report was released in September.
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