Women-owned businesses on a streak

The overall trend is also attention-grabbing: the number of women-owned businesses has grown at 1.5 times the rate of all other businesses, while employment and revenue growth have grown faster than all but the largest public companies, the study reported.

The recession slowed the significant number of women-owned businesses that were being founded on a daily basis, from more than 700 a day in the 2002-07 period to about 500 a day, through 2012. Now, however, female entrepreneurs have come roaring back, starting 1,288 new ventures a day over the past year.

See also: Female financial advisors on the rise

And women of color have done well, too. As the report states:

"Since 1997, the growth in the number and economic contributions of firms owned by women of color is nothing short of remarkable. Comprising just 17 percent of women-owned firms 17 years ago, firms owned by women of color now account for one in three (32 percent) women-owned firms in the U.S."

Geographically, the south is the hotbed for the percentage of all businesses started by women. The number of women-owned firms nationally has increased by 68 percent since 1997. Leading states include:

1. Georgia, up 118 percent;
2. Texas, up 98 percent;
3. North Carolina, up 91 percent;
4. Nevada, up 91 percent; and
5. Mississippi, up 81 percent.

But when the researchers looked at the state rankings through a different lens, a new list emerged.

"In terms of growth in combined economic clout, however — meaning averaging together the rankings in growth in the number, revenues and employment of women-owned firms — the states in which all of these measures combined place women-owned firms in a much-better-than-average position over the 1997 to 2014 period are North Dakota, the District of Columbia, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia." Thus Georgia and Nevada would seem to offer the most hospitable environments for women-owned businesses.

Using this measure of "economic clout," the worst places for women-owned businesses to flourish in the past 17 years have been Iowa, Vermont, Rhode Island, Ohio and Maine.

Other data mined from the report:

• The only bright spot in recent years with respect to privately held company job growth has been among women-owned firms. They have added an estimated 274,000 jobs since 2007. Among men-owned and equally owned firms, employment has declined over the past seven years.
• Despite accounting for 30 percent of all business today, women-owned firms employ only 6 percent of the U.S. workforce and contribute just under 4 percent of business revenues — roughly the same share they contributed in 1997.
• When large, publicly traded firms are excluded, women-owned firms comprise 31 percent of all privately held firms and contribute 14 percent of employment and 11 percent of revenues.
• Compared to their peers, a look at the share of women-owned and all firms with the highest economic impact finds that women-owned firms are standing toe-to-toe with their industry peers in two industries: construction, where 12 percent of women-owned firms and 11 percent of all construction firms are pulling in $500,000+ per year; and in transportation and warehousing, where 6 percent of each are generating $500,000 or more in revenues.

See also: The Gap eliminates gender pay gap