SET women’s enterprise in the UK

Anna Zalevski and Takao Maruyama, November 2010

Research indicates that female entrepreneurs are more innovative than their male counterparts; they are more likely to be providing a product new to the market, more likely to be using technology in their products or services and more likely to be offering a product or service that has been developed in the last year*  (Prowess, 2007).

1. Self-employed women and men in the UK
•    There are about 3.5 million self-employed people in the UK, with women accounting for 27.1% of all self-employed (about 0.95 million women).  
•    Self-employed women are more likely to have academic qualifications than self-employed men. About one in three (31.2 per cent) self-employed women has at least undergraduate qualifications, compared to only one in five self-employed men (18.1 per cent).
In SET occupations
The proportion of self-employed women in science, engineering and technology is very small.
•    There are just over 75,000 self-employed women in all SET occupations in the UK; this represents 6.4% of all self-employed people in SET occupations.
•    Among all self-employed women in SET occupations:
•    About 68,000 work in SET professions and associate professions including health, making up 16.9% of all self-employed people in these professions. However, when health is excluded, the proportion of women declines to only 7.5%.
•    Self-employed women are particularly poorly represented among SET skilled trades. A large number of self-employed men (about 774,000) work in SET skilled trades compared with only 7,700 women. This means that for every self-employed woman in SET skilled trades there are just over 100 men.
•    Self-employed men are only slightly more likely to hold STEM qualifications than self-employed women (6.3% and 4.7%, respectively).

In SET Industries     
•    Women also remain under-represented in SET industries. There are about 113,000 self-employed women in SET industries in the UK; this represents 7.0% of all self-employed people in these industries.
•    Self-employed women are much more likely to work in non-SET industries. There are 802,000 self-employed women in non-SET industries in the UK, accounting for 42.4% of all self-employed people in these industries.
•    For each self-employed woman in SET industries there are just over 7 women in non-SET industries.
  The data for section 1 are from ONS (2009 data)

2. Self-employed people who either have controlling interest or own company in SET industries
•    There are just over one million self-employed people in the UK who either have controlling interest or own company in SET industries.
•    Women represent only 7.6% of all people who either have controlling interest or own company in SET industries.
•    In contrast, within non-SET industries women make up 41.2% of people who either have controlling interest or own company.
•    Business women are under-represented in all SET industries, but their representation does vary greatly across industries. In many SET industries the number of women who either have controlling interest or own company is too small to be statistically reliable.
o    Just over 10,000 self-employed men have controlling interest or are business owners in ‘mining and quarrying’, ‘electricity, gas steam, air conditioning supply’, ‘repair of computers and personal household goods’, but no data are available for women in these three out of ten SET industries.  
o    Women are 14.4% of all self-employed people who either have controlling interest or own company in information and communication industries (representing about 10,000 businesses), 16.8% in professional scientific and technical activities industry (nearly 15,000 businesses) and only 3% in construction (nearly 17,000 businesses).
o    Women make the biggest proportion of business owners/people with controlling interest in manufacturing: 20.2% (33.8% of all self-employed women who either own businesses or have controlling interest in SET industries).
 The data for section 2 are from ONS (2008 data, quarter 2)

3. Self-employed with STEM qualifications working in SET occupations
•    Just over half (51.1%) of all self-employed STEM graduates work in SET occupations (including health and skilled trades), 44.8% work in SET professions/associate professions including heath, and 38.3 per cent were working in SET professions/associate professions excluding heath.
•    However, fewer than one in three (27.3%) self-employed STEM female graduates work in SET occupations, compared to more than half (57.8%) of their male counterparts. This means that self-employed male STEM graduates are more than twice as likely as female STEM graduates to work in SET occupations.
•    Among non-STEM graduates, the proportions of self-employed women and men working in SET occupations are much lower (15.1% and 24.4%, respectively).  
•    Among self-employed workforce without any undergraduate qualifications, however, nearly half of men (44.9%) work in SET occupations, compared to only 3.8% of women in the same group.  This is because a large number of self-employed men (about 752,000) without qualifications are working in SET skilled trades, compared with only 6,000 self-employed women without qualifications working in the same occupations. This means that for every self-employed woman in SET skilled trades there are 125 men.
The data for section 3 are from ONS (2009 data)

The figures are alarming because sectoral segregation is a significant factor in the growth discrepancy between male and female owned firms (Prowess, 2007).

Furthermore 70.7% of women with SET qualifications are not working in SET industries, this compares with 45.2% of men with SET qualifications**. SECT careers are perceived to be inflexible and not conducive to part-time working or career breaks. SECT enterprise may enable more women to pursue a career in their chosen field, at a level that matches their skills and experience on a more flexible basis (Prowess, 2007).

References:

Prowess (2007). Under the microscope: Female entrepreneurs in SECT.  Report commissioned by the UKRC.