Lack of Wom en Role M odels This theory is further backed by data. The NYT article found that "research shows that women around the world are less likely to consider entrepreneurship as a career path, largely because they don?t see other women entrepreneurs as role models."
Wom en Ar e Lef t Ou t of Fin an cial Net w or k s Financing networks, which are predominately run by men (91 percent of venture capitalists are male!), often are referral-based, which keeps women out of the loop. Susan Coleman, a business professor at the University of Hartford and a co-author of a Third Way think tank report told the New York Times: ?Women are just outside of those established networks, and if you?re outside the networks, you don?t get the knowledge, you don?t get the opportunities, you don?t get the contacts and you don?t get the funding."
Wh en Wom en Su cceed, Ever yon e Win s The good news is that the reason women are not launching their own businesses has nothing to do with brains or talent. On the contrary, women are outpacing men when it comes to college degrees. A study from Harvard School of Public Health found that "women earn 57 percent of bachelor ?s degrees, over 62 percent of master ?s degrees, and 53 percent of degrees such as PhDs, medical degrees, and law degrees in the United States." But then they are getting jobs in a market where they are underrepresented in leadership roles across the board.
But when women are in positions of power, companies typically perform better. The Harvard study found that "when Fortune-500 companies were ranked by the number of women directors on their boards, those in the highest quartile in 2009 reported a 42 percent greater return on sales and a 53 percent higher return on equity than the rest."