The Boss of You

A good friend drew my attention to the front cover of the Globe and Mail this weekend, which featured an enticing cover story (also noted by Leah in her response to our post about the NY Times’s new blog): Women over the age of 55 seem to be pulling through the current economic downturn with increased employment numbers — they’re the only group who have seen a significant increase in employment from October 2008 to June 2009, with an additional 60,000 women aged 55 and over working. In general, men are being harder hit by the recession:

Across all ages, the gender gap in unemployment is the biggest since Statistics Canada began tracking it in 1976. Last month, the unemployment rate for men was 9.2 per cent, compared to 6.8 per cent for women, although women comprise nearly half the work force.

You can read more about the (un)employment figures in this report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

But here’s where it gets particularly interesting from my perspective:

[Women over 55 are] starting their own businesses at an impressive rate – accounting in June for more than 15 per cent of all jobs held by women in the 55-and-over cohort.

[…] Dr. Bakr Ibrahim, director of the Centre for Small Business and Entrepreneurial Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, said evidence indicates women entrepreneurs are twice as successful as men.

Women tend to have larger and more formal networks. They focus on sharing, and have more of a team approach.

They’re more frugal with resources, especially in the start-up phase. And they’re more likely than men to recognize their weaknesses and ask for help.

Interestingly, said Dr. Ibrahim, a large percentage of women start up their own businesses late in life. They get frustrated working in a large organization when they hit the glass ceiling, and so they venture forth on their own, bringing a lot of management experience with them.

It’s very interesting to me how frequently we see women prompted to start businesses by external factors, whether it’s the prospect of motherhood (or coming back into the workforce after taking parental leave), the newfound freedom that comes with kids growing up and leaving home, or broader societal shifts like economic fluctuations. I would love to know more about how the self-employment numbers compare to men’s, or indeed to the number of self-employed women prior to the downturn.