Growing a small business is tough on anyone, but new data shows it’s particularly challenging for Black women.
In 2021 it was found that 17% of Black women are in the process of founding or running new companies. That’s staggering considering just 10% of white women, and 15% of white men are doing the same. What’s more, Black women only make up 11.4% of the US population. To understand why business growth has been so hard, Inc And Go, a business formation consultancy, conducted a wide-ranging survey to delve into some of the challenges minorities face when starting and growing a company.
They surveyed 1,000 employed people: 55% were white, 15% were Black, 17% were Latinx, 12% were Asian, and 1% preferred not to answer. Fifty-one percent were men, and 49% were women.
The top challenges Black women reported facing in entrepreneurship was ack of job security (42%) and significant worry about creating a solid business plan (42%)
It was also found that Black participants were more likely to want to start a business than their White and Asian counterparts, largely because, positions at tech and finance companies offered high salaries and various perks.
This differing interest mostly speaks to the lack of diversity in tech and the finance industries, where employees are mostly white or Asian, and Black people are grossly underrepresented.
Another interesting finding is that women reported more issues with securing funding for their businesses than men. Loan applications, specifically were a burden for the women, which speaks to the larger issue that Black entrepreneurs in general face when getting bank loans for their businesses.
The full report can be found here.