May 5, 2003 -- Today, the Center for Women's Business Research will unveil the results of new research that provides an expanded vision of the economic impact of women's business ownership, and shows that they continue to outpace the rest of the economy in growth and expansion.

The research project, entitled Completing the Picture, took another look at business ownership among women by including both those privately held companies with women as majority owners and companies with women owning at least 50% of the firms. Future research on the project will look at firms in which women own "controlling or substantial minority interest" and publicly traded companies.

By looking at all the numbers, the Center for Women's Business Research hopes to construct a more complete picture of the role and impact of women in the economy and in the ownership and management of companies in general.

The current analysis shows that, when you include companies in which women own all or at least 50% of the firm, there are 10.1 million firms with women at the helm, generating 18.2 million jobs and contributing more than $2.3 trillion in sales to the economy. Further, the Center estimates that these business grew by 11% between 1997 and 2002, which is better than 1.5 times the rate of all privately held firms.

From these numbers, it seems pretty clear that the rapid expansion of business ownership among women has continued unabated over better than a decade. The total number of these women owned businesses comprises almost half (46%) of all privately held firms in the country. In fact, one in eleven women in the United States is a business owner.

At the same time, these numbers also show a continuation of the trend that the vast majority of the revenues and the jobs are coming from relatively few of these firms. Of the 3.9 million privately held firms in which women own at least 50% interest, 166,212 have revenues of $1 million, and 6,902 have 100 or more employees. That doesn't sound too bad until you crunch the numbers. Only 4.3% of these firms have revenues in excess of $1 million a year. A meager 0.2% have 100 or more employees.

These numbers are more or less consistent with earlier data analysis conducted by the Center for Women's Business Research. The fact of the matter is that most of the businesses in the country really do not make all that much money. While firms in which women are involved in partnerships or teams seem to be faring slightly better than those being operated by women who are solo flyers, the difference is only slight.

And, while it might sound impressive to talk about firms that generate millions and billions of dollars in revenue, the reality is that the world's largest economy generally chugs along on the backs of a lot of little companies that make a lot less money. Once again, we would all do well to remember that.