Paris in the top 10 for female entrepreneurs

It’s good to be an entrepreneur in France when you’re a woman, and particularly in Paris.  Such is revealed in the 2019 edition of the “Women Entrepreneur Cities Index” published by Dell and IHS Markit each year.

For the first time ever, Paris has made the top 10 list of the world’s most welcoming cities for female entrepreneurs.  The French capital has moved up 4 spots since 2017, coming in 8th place out of the 50 most favorable cities for female entrepreneurship development in the world.

A global improvement..

To complete their study, Dell analyzed the economic, political, cultural, and technological conditions in 50 cities where developed markets and clusters of innovation already exist.  Calculations were then made based on five criteria (market, talent, capital, culture, and technology) and 71 indicators, close to two-thirds of which were linked to gender.  Each city then received a grade out of 100.  Some areas of study include public policy favoring female entrepreneurship, the number of startups lead by women, the percentage of women in business incubators, equal access to technology, and training in technology professions for women.  This year, thirty of the fifty cities analyzed improved more than half of their indicators, with Latin America and Europe making the most significant improvements.

Paris had the highest 2019 score for women on corporate boards, at 44%.  This could be due to the fact that France requires that females make up at least 40% of corporate board membership.

…but a long road ahead.

Although a majority of cities have improved, these results should be taken with precaution:  although Paris is in 8th place in general, its indicator concerning technology is in 23rd place.  This finding illustrates the reality of the place of women in this sector in France: women are less trained in new technologies and thus less represented in these jobs as founders.  Don’t forget, according to statistics by FrenchTech, only 10% of tech projects are led by women, while 90% are led by men.  Education and training isn’t the only factor at play here, the financing of startups founded by women remains one of the hardest obstacles: according to statistics by Sista collective, in France in 2018, only 2.6% of investments in innovation were allocated to projects led by women.

Sources: Dell 2019 Women Entrepreneur Cities (WE Cities) Index  ; Paris dans le top 10 des villes favorisant l’entrepreneuriat féminin