News | Monday, 29th June 2020

Female entrepreneurs ‘overlooked’ by government support, enterprise experts say

University research fuels call for Chancellor to give women’s enterprise a voice

Professor Julia Rouse is Co-Chair of the Women's Enterprise Policy Group
Professor Julia Rouse is Co-Chair of the Women's Enterprise Policy Group

A host of female entrepreneurs and women-led businesses have been overlooked and forgotten by the government’s business support schemes, according to a group of academics and business leaders.

Despite the suite of policies laid out by the Chancellor Rishi Sunak to support small businesses that have fallen through the cracks in coronavirus (COVID-19) support schemes, a group of experts are calling for more action to support women’s enterprise with an urgent need to put gender-aware policies in place.

The Women’s Enterprise Policy Group (WEPG), which represents leading experts from business support and academia across the UK, has written an open letter to the Chancellor requesting that women are given a voice and a role in shaping policy responses to these urgent and challenging problems.

Informed by research from Manchester Metropolitan University, the WEPG has outlined its assessments of how current government policies have overlooked many women as well as how the coronavirus crisis is still unfolding and will continue to affect women-led businesses for months to come.

The group says current policy has completely forgotten many women in five ways.

  1. Excluding from the Self-employment Income Support Scheme the mass of women who entered self-employment in recent years, and the many who trade part-time alongside a job

  2. Excluding most women from the Future Fund by making it dependent on securing private investment when research shows women struggle to gain angel and venture capital due to investor bias

  3. Excluding home-based businesses (which applied to most women-owned businesses) out of the main COVID-19 grants scheme, so they have no compensation for businesses losses

  4. Ignoring evidence that women are reluctant to borrow (and trade in sectors with low profits where borrowing is unwise) when designing the Bounce Back Loans and Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme

  5. Failing to compensate business directors for their dividend income even when they are precluded from trading due to school and nursery closures

Professor Julia Rouse, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Manchester Metropolitan University and Co-Chair of the WEPG, said: “There is an urgent need for women’s enterprise to be at the policy table.

“Developing gender responsive policy for women requires our expertise as we can help analyse how COVID-19 is impacting women-led businesses, monitor policy impact and help shape and implement policies that work for women.”

The WEPG believes that, because the current crisis is still unfolding, for many women-led businesses the financial hardship will continue in the months ahead.

The open letter to the Chancellor draws findings from a study conducted by the Centre for Decent Work and Productivity at Manchester Metropolitan University and the Enterprise Research Centre, which looked at how certain groups had been impacted by the Government’s coronavirus financial support schemes.

It found social distancing is more difficult in the sectors women tend to trade in, so getting back to profitable trading is a long and uncertain haul.

School and nursery provision will be absent, part-time and difficult to co-ordinate for months and months to come, affecting female entrepreneurs.

An economic disaster could ravage local communities and could be offset if women are given more of a voice. We urge the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to bring the Women’s Enterprise Policy Group to the policy-making table.

Fathers and employers are relying primarily on mothers to pick up the extra work of home-schooling and women who are their own boss or trade from home find this pressure hard to resist. 

The research highlighted how single mothers cannot share their childcare with family and friends.

Prof Rouse added: “The peak of the crisis for women-led businesses may come just before Christmas as the Self-employment Income Support Scheme and the Job Retention Scheme close.

“We are haunted by an image of a devastating pre-Christmas period for households and families across the UK.

“An economic disaster could ravage local communities and could be offset if women are given more of a voice. We urge the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to bring the Women’s Enterprise Policy Group to the policy-making table.

“Now is the time to put gender-aware policies in place. Now is the time to develop gender responsive policies to avoid the serious risk of economic devastation in communities across the UK for generations to come. And now is the time to make sure women-led business are not forgotten and we are, indeed, ‘in this together’.”

Prof Rouse also submitted evidence along the same lines to the Parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee Inquiry entitled ‘Unequal impact: Coronavirus (Covid19) and the impact on people with protected characteristics’.

The WEPG represents leading experts from business support and academia across the UK.

Members of the Group include:

More news