Written by Julien Ricciarelli-Bonnal

22 July 2026

Women Still Account for Only One Third of Business Owners in Europe

On 22 June 2026, the European Commission published a new report on women’s entrepreneurship. Its central finding can be summarised in a single figure: women account for only 33% of business owners in the European Union. The imbalance is therefore not limited to the boards of large corporations, executive roles in listed companies or access to the most visible leadership positions. It also runs through entrepreneurship itself: the ability to create, own, develop and eventually transfer a business.

The gap does not disappear once a company has been created. Women are more likely to run businesses without employees, remain concentrated in certain sectors and face greater difficulty when seeking to finance growth, innovate or expand internationally. According to the figures compiled by the Commission, 74% of women entrepreneurs work without employees, compared with 66% of men. Their companies are also slightly less likely to pursue high growth, introduce innovations or enter foreign markets.

These differences are sometimes explained as the result of personal preferences. Women, it is argued, choose different sectors, smaller companies or more cautious growth strategies. That interpretation mainly avoids examining the conditions under which those choices are made. An entrepreneurial decision is never taken in isolation. It depends on the capital available, the networks that can be accessed, the time a founder can devote to the project, the credibility granted by investors and the way an idea is perceived before it has had an opportunity to prove itself.

Europe’s challenge is therefore not simply to encourage more women to start businesses. It must also enable them to build companies capable of hiring, investing, exporting and scaling.

The Gap Begins Before a Business Is Created

Entrepreneurship is often presented as the ultimate expression of freedom. Anyone, in theory, can start with an idea, take a risk and build a company that reflects their ambition. That description contains some truth, but it conceals the resources required to turn an intention into a viable business. Having savings, being able to reduce one’s income temporarily, knowing other entrepreneurs, accessing reliable advice or receiving support from family and friends can radically change the likelihood of taking the first step.

Women remain more exposed to time constraints and financial insecurity that reduce this room for manoeuvre. When someone carries a larger share of family or domestic responsibilities, giving up a stable income becomes more difficult. Entrepreneurial risk no longer concerns only the success of the project; it can affect the financial and organisational balance of the entire household. The resulting caution is not necessarily a lack of ambition. It may be a rational response to a greater exposure to the consequences of failure.

Professional pathways and role models also matter. The sectors in which women are most strongly represented as entrepreneurs still largely correspond to activities traditionally associated with female employment. Women account for 69% of business owners in personal services, 65% in health and social work, and 57% in education. They remain significantly underrepresented in construction, manufacturing, transport, energy and information technology.

That concentration has economic consequences. Sectors do not offer the same margins, financing prospects or opportunities for international expansion. Encouraging women to become entrepreneurs without addressing education, career orientation and access to technical professions may increase the number of new businesses while leaving intact the economic conditions that later determine their potential.

Starting a Business Does Not Guarantee the Ability to Grow It

Women’s underrepresentation is often measured at the moment of business creation. The most decisive gap, however, may emerge later, when an activity needs to move from an individual operation to an organisation capable of recruiting, investing and entering new markets. This is precisely the stage at which access to finance, commercial networks and management expertise becomes critical.

European data show that businesses founded by women tend to remain smaller and are more likely to close. Among women who discontinue their activities, 26% cite insufficient profitability, compared with 19% of men. This does not demonstrate that their business ideas are inherently weaker. It suggests instead that women are less likely to have the resources needed to absorb a difficult period, adjust a business model or finance a new phase of development.

Venture capital illustrates the imbalance particularly clearly. Among European technology start-ups, all-female teams receive only 3% of investment, compared with 15% for mixed teams, while the overwhelming majority continues to go to all-male founding teams. Funding provides more than money. It creates access to networks, partners, experienced talent and a form of legitimacy that makes subsequent financing easier.

A company that is underfunded from the beginning does not simply grow more slowly. It may remain permanently excluded from the systems that accelerate the growth of others.

Growth is not a personal quality that some founders possess and others lack. It depends on an environment capable of supporting a company once its needs exceed the founder’s own resources. Providing finance without strengthening the ability to make decisions, sell and structure the organisation is not enough. Conversely, demanding immediate profitability before granting access to the means required for expansion mechanically reproduces existing inequalities.

Targeted Programmes Help, but They Cannot Correct Everything

The European Union has introduced several programmes designed to support women entrepreneurs, particularly in technology. The third edition of Women TechEU is expected to support 160 women-led start-ups with €75,000 in non-dilutive funding, alongside mentoring, training and introductions to investors and major companies. Since 2021, the programme has already supported 344 businesses operating in deep technology.

These initiatives address a genuine need. They provide capital without diluting ownership, increase the visibility of women founders and create networks that may continue to produce value after the formal programme has ended. Companies from three Women TechEU cohorts have collectively raised more than €53.8 million in private funding following an initial European investment of €9 million. Targeted support is therefore more than a symbolic policy; it can generate measurable leverage.

Yet such programmes are inevitably limited in relation to the scale of the problem. The European Union estimates that there could be 5.5 million additional women entrepreneurs if women participated in early-stage entrepreneurship at the same rate as men aged between 30 and 49. No competition, network of role models or specialist funding package can compensate on its own for a gap of that size.

The risk is that a parallel ecosystem is created for women without changing the ordinary mechanisms of finance and business support. Women founders may become highly visible in dedicated programmes while remaining underrepresented in investment committees, traditional business networks, public procurement or corporate acquisitions. The objective should not be to multiply exceptions indefinitely, but to make mainstream economic systems genuinely accessible.

That also requires closer examination of the practices used by decision-makers. Bias is not always expressed through explicit rejection. It can appear in the questions asked, the level of evidence required, the perception of risk or the interpretation of ambition. The same caution may be described as discipline in a man and lack of confidence in a woman; the same bold projection may be viewed as leadership in one case and as an insufficiently substantiated promise in another.

This Is a Question of European Competitiveness

Reducing the debate to representation would be an economic mistake. Europe wants to improve productivity, strengthen innovation and produce more companies capable of competing globally. It cannot pursue that objective while a significant share of its population remains less present in company creation, financing and growth.

Every woman who decides not to start a business because she lacks security, networks or finance represents a potential activity that will never be created. Every viable company that remains artificially small because it cannot access the right resources represents lost employment, innovation and added value. The entrepreneurial gap is not borne only by the women directly affected; it reduces the total number of companies available to the European economy.

Public policy must therefore operate at several levels: improving access to entrepreneurial and financial skills, making funding processes more transparent, supporting women’s networks without isolating them from mainstream business networks, facilitating the balance between family responsibilities and company growth, and providing stronger support during expansion. Companies themselves also have a role when selecting suppliers, choosing partners or designing innovation programmes.

For women founders, as for every other business leader, sustainable growth also requires the ability to clarify the company’s strategy and commercial priorities⁠. Equal access to resources does not remove the need for a coherent business model. It simply allows that model to be assessed and supported according to its real value rather than through additional obstacles.

The figure of 33% does not reflect a lack of entrepreneurial interest. It reveals a chain of imbalances that begins before a company is created and continues through the financing of growth. As long as policy responses focus only on the desire to start a business, they will address the beginning of the journey while leaving later barriers untouched.

Europe does not merely need more women to create their own jobs. It needs women founders who can build companies, recruit, innovate, export and eventually become investors, acquirers and accessible role models themselves. Only then will the current one-third figure stop being presented as progress and start being recognised for what it still represents: a vast source of economic potential that Europe has not yet fully used.

👉 Women founders and growing companies need more than encouragement. Ricciarelli Partners can help them build a clearer marketing and communication strategy to support sustainable development⁠.