What is the dollar value of the market captured by women-owned businesses?

Inflation-adjusted sales and receipts during the 15 year period between 1977 and 1992 for all women-owned businesses rose by almost 14 percent each year to $458 billion in 1982-84 dollars.³ This represents 11 percent of inflation-adjusted sales and receipts for all proprietorships, partnerships and Subchapter S corporations in the United States.

Sales/receipts for businesses with employees moved up at a comparable rate, almost 14 percent per year, to $392 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars in 1992. Women-owned businesses with employees accounted for 17 percent of sales and receipts for all business in the United States.

As sales/receipts for all women-owned firms and for women-owned firms with employees increased, payroll costs for women-owned businesses with paid employees also rose during the period from 1977-1992, growing 14 percent each year. Even though the growth rates in these three measures were similar, a wide gap developed between sales/receipts and payrolls in firms with paid employees.

One of the reasons for the striking growth in women-owned businesses in the decade between 1982 and 1992 may be the widening gap between sales/receipts and payroll costs. The gap indicates that substantial profits may have accrued to women business owners over the decade. Figure 2 shows clearly the widening gap between sales/receipts and payroll costs for employers with paid employees. If this gap continues, we may expect that more and more women will start their own businesses to acquire these profits.

Figure 3 shows the growth in employees in women-owned firms with paid employees. By 1992, about 1 out of every 20 employees in the U.S. was an employee in a woman-owned firm.

The upsurge in the number of women-owned businesses, as well as the large volume of sales, receipts, and payrolls found in women-owned firms, has ensured that women business owners are an economic force which should be considered in policy decisions at every level.