Federal Government: Collection of sex desegregated data and the procurement of contracts for women business owners in Australia. Download pdf.  August 2012

State & Local Governments: Collection of sex desegregated data and the procurement of contracts for women business owners in Australia. Download pdf.  August 2012

 “Forget China, India and the Internet: Economic growth is driven by Women.”

Women are walking away from the corporate environment to start their own business; Australia is seeing a rising tide in the surge of female entrepreneurs. These women make a significant and powerful contribution to our nation's economic growth and are a sector that we can no longer ignore.

More than 104 million women in 59 economies started and managed new business ventures in 2010.

In Australia we have seen a substantial growth of women-owned businesses in the past few years. Research suggests that the number of women starting their own business has doubled since 2007. Today there are almost 1 million women trading in Australia, however many of these women are economically disadvantaged with more than half being unable to pay themselves a wage.

To continue to overlook this growing sector of our economy will be a threat to our nation’s economy. As a result, if no improvement is made, more than 1 million women could soon be living below the poverty line: with no superannuation, no savings, no exit strategy, few prospects for employment at the end of their career and no income from their business at retirement age.

Women are a significant commercial prospect. If we ignore this once in a lifetime opportunity it will be to the peril of this nation and future generations.