New companies: fewer and fewer female founders

During the pandemic, women have started fewer new businesses. This is reported by the ifo Institute. This reinforces a trend that was already observed before Corona.

The number of companies founded by women has decreased during the corona pandemic. Women have founded fewer companies than men before – this is the result of an analysis by the Munich ifo Institute.

The researchers evaluated entries in the commercial register for the period from 2005 to 2021. According to this, the proportion of women in new start-ups in the commercial register stagnated at less than 20 percent and even fell by 1.2 percent during the corona pandemic.

Childcare still a woman’s job?

According to the ifo Institute, one reason could be that women took on most of the childcare during the school and daycare closures. In addition, women’s career and study choices played a decisive role. Women are underrepresented in many courses with a high start-up rate, such as engineering and computer science.

In the eleven sectors with the highest number of start-ups – including manufacturing, construction and financial services – the proportion of women in start-ups has even been falling continuously since 2010, the evaluation showed. The only exception: start-ups in the healthcare sector. Here, the proportion of women has risen to a third.

The lowest rate in western Germany

Start-ups are also important for events on the stock markets because they can result in listed companies in the future. But in addition to a good idea and implementation, this requires staying power and so-called risk capital; According to the ifo scientists, the latter is mainly distributed to men.

The rate of female founders in rural western Germany is particularly low. On the other hand, women start a business disproportionately in large cities such as Munich (32 percent), Bonn (31 percent) and Frankfurt am Main (24 percent) and in some eastern German districts. Better expansion of childcare is given as the reason.