STRIA as GRANDIS lead partner, along with other project partners, made their new findings public about women-led small-and medium enterprises (SMEs) in a recent infographic. The results are based on the voluntary participation in an analysis conducted with 59 companies from the 8 European project partner countries: Bosnia, Greece, Albania, Lithuania, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and Hungary.
Key findings:
- The majority (59%) of companies are relatively new (founded 2020-2024) and are either limited companies or sole entrepreneurs, with most of the employees (86%) being women.
- The most important challenges female entrepreneurs and businesswomen identified in the surveys were high social security cover, unclear regulations, bureaucratic red tape, tax issues, lack of funding and underdeveloped or completely missing private or public support targeting green/digital start-ups and female entrepreneurs.
- Most financial support and incentives available for female business owners are private fundings (50%) or start-up incentives (26%). There is also a clear scarcity in funding aimed specifically at women, with overall 4 cases identified in Hungary, Albania and Bosnia out of the 8 countries.
- 38 out of 59 companies claimed they were supported by networks (in the form of coaching, financial or business support or women networks), but only about 1/3 of them were targeting specifically women and only 10 were public funded initiatives. As for the distribution between countries, Lithuania has the most support networks available (9), while Hungary has the second most with 3 initiatives.
- The surveys also found that 19 of the 59 companies are run by mothers. Balancing work and family life was found to be challenging, as half of the children are under 18, and only about 1/4 felt that the childcare hours available at childcare facilities (public and private) benefited them in balancing work with motherhood.
With this data in mind, STRIA and other GRANDIS project partners will continue their progress in making more support available for female entrepreneurs in the digital and green transition.
For more information on the GRANDIS project: https://www.interregeurope.eu/grandis , https://www.ddriu.hu/grandis/
The project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and Hungary within the Interreg Europe Program.
To see the infographics in full size, click on the images below.
