Women’s Day: one in five businesses is female

Fonte: ufficio stampa Confartigianato Imprese Marca Trevigiana

Barbara Barbon, president of Movimento Donne Impresa (“Women’s Business Movement“) “Women entrepreneurs also contribute to reducing the gender gap, offering young people an important example of the concrete possibility of realising their aspirations and overcoming gender stereotypes in the labour market.”

One in five enterprises in the province of Treviso is female. They are 17,478, 20.1% of the total number of enterprises, with a growth of 72 units compared to 2021. Of these, there are 3,611 ‘pink’ artisan enterprises, with a growth of 42 units compared to 2021, representing 20.7% of the total number of female enterprises and 4.2% of the overall total of enterprises in the province of Treviso.

“Women’s enterprises have a better dynamic than the total number of female enterprises,” emphasises Oscar Bernardi, president of Confartigianato Imprese Marca Trevigiana (Association representing companies in Treviso). “This is an increasingly important reality. There are 6,599 women in management positions in craft enterprises in the province of Treviso.”
Even better are the figures for female-run businesses run by young people: there are 1,611 of them, accounting for 26.5% of the total number of young businesses in the province. Those run by artisans number 435, or 27%. This is where Covid has made its effects felt: since 2019, 151 female youth-run enterprises have been lost, of which 29 were craft enterprises.

In contrast, female-run businesses run by foreigners grew by 143 units compared to 2019, reaching 2,447, or 14% female-run businesses of Treviso. There are 658 craft enterprises run by foreign women, 26.8%, with a positive change compared to 2019 of 38 units. Foreign women-owned businesses run by young women have also slowed down with the pandemic: since 2019 they have dropped by 66 units to 334, or 1.9% of the total. Narrowing the field to craft businesses, there are 80, down 16 from 2019. “The figures are certainly encouraging, but they sound an alarm bell,” notes president Oscar Bernardi. “The consequences of the pandemic and international crises have had a negative impact. In fact, the highest representation of women in Treviso’s craft businesses was recorded in 2018, with 6,875 women in positions. In the last few years they have decreased by 276, minus 4%’. A figure that reflects the general trend of employment in the province of Treviso. We have gone from a record 59.9% female employment rate in 2021, to 55% in 2022.  Personal services is the sector where women are most represented: 2,931 have positions, or 44.4% of the total. This is followed by engineering with 2,250, or 34.1%, construction with 704 (10.7%) and business services with 665 (10.1%).
Women business owners in the province number 2,864, accounting for 43.4% of the total, followed by women business partners with 2,502 positions (37.9%), and women administrators with 1,047 (15.9%). Finally, 186 women (2.8%) hold other positions in craft businesses.

“In 2023, female positions fell by 1.2% compared to the previous year,” Bernardi concludes. “In particular, women partners contracted by 2.9 per cent, while owners fell by 1.5 points. In contrast, female administrators grew by 1.9 per cent. Beyond Women’s Day, the Association’s task is to create the conditions for the development of female entrepreneurship. Women are increasingly proving to be true protagonists of craft and economic activity in general in our province.”
“The data show,” emphasises Barbara Barbon, president of the provincial Movimento Donne Impresa Confartigianato, “that female entrepreneurship contributes to employment and to building a future of development for our country. Women entrepreneurs also contribute to reducing the gender gap, thus offering young people an important example of the concrete possibility of realising their aspirations and overcoming gender stereotypes in the labour market. We are aware of our strengths but there is still much to be done to break down the existing difficulties that confine Italy to last place in Europe for the female employment rate’.
“The Women’s Business Movement  Confartigianato,” continues President Barbon, ‘is not asking for preferential treatment or fast lanes, but only for the respect of rights that too often remain on paper. There is still much to be done, starting with a welfare system tailored to the needs of women as mothers, wives, daughters, workers’.