Black Women Are Helping To Narrow The Gender Wage Gap As The Fastest Growing Group Of Entrepreneurs

Black women are making huge strides.

A new report from GoDaddy’s Venture Forward research initiative suggests that Black women are still the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs, and subsequently are leading the charge in closing the racial wage gap.

The rate at which Black women have launched new businesses have more than doubled since August 2019. According to the research, Black women total 10% of total entrepreneurs surveyed for the latest report, representing a 70% increase in the number of Black women-owned businesses started prior to the pandemic.

“We all know entrepreneurship is powerful, and with this data, people can understand precisely how powerful it is across different types of small and microbusinesses,” said Alexandra Rosen, senior director of Venture Forward in a news release.

Rosen added, “Better understanding helps advocates find opportunities to further support these entrepreneurs. What our research demonstrates is that entrepreneurship creates positive impacts for entrepreneur’s households, the communities where they live and work as well as the greater economy.”

Some of the key takeaways from the report highlight that Black founders own 15% of U.S. microbusinesses, and of those, Black women own 68%. Additionally, one in six microbusiness owners earn more than $100,000 annually, and nearly three out of ten women with a microbusiness are heads of their households.

As previously reported by ESSENCE, in cis-het relationships, recent data found that women outearn their male romantic partners.

“Nearly one-third of wives earn roughly the same amount as their husbands, while the woman is the primary or sole breadwinner in 16% of marriages,” the report said. “In egalitarian and breadwinner wife marriages, husbands spend considerably more time on leisure activities than wives. Husbands in egalitarian marriages spend about 3.5 hours more per week on leisure activities than wives do. Wives in these marriages spend roughly 2 hours more per week on caregiving than husbands do and about 2.5 hours more on housework. In marriages where wives are the primary earners, husbands’ leisure time increases significantly (compared with egalitarian marriages), while the time they spend on caregiving and housework stays about the same.”

More information can be found in the full version of Venture Forward’s latest report.