The U.S. and Australia surpass all other countries in fostering female entrepreneurship

New research shows that the U.K. is improving its environment for women to succeed in entrepreneurship — but is still lagging behind other European countries like France and Germany.

The U.K. ranked 7th out of 30 countries in the Gender-GEDI index, announced at Dell’s Women Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) conference today.

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The research showed that 75 percent of countries included in the survey were not meeting the minimum requirements to foster female entrepreneurship.

Facing the facts

Though the U.K. climbed one place since the Gender-GEDI index was announced last year, it still ranked below USA and Australia as an environment in which women can succeed in entrepreneurship.

Karen Quintos, Dell’s Chief Marketing officer explained that female entrepreneurs were crucial to thriving economies.

Awareness of the current landscape is the first step towards change…

Lagging behind

Researchers found that economies in which the male to female ratio across all sectors of employment encouraged diverse and far-reaching female entrepreneurship.

In the U.K., for example, industries which have been traditionally dominated by men such at the construction, lacked female entrepreneurs, ideas and methods to develop the sector.

Women in senior positions are also unrepresented — and education, networks, and management experience are crucial to female success.

Emerging markets

In emerging markets women who had access to bank accounts had a significantly bigger chance of succeeding in entrepreneurship.

Research also suggested that in 22 of 30 countries, married women had fewer rights than married men and in 8 countries, women don’t have the same access to property as men.

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This story originally appeared on Techcitynews.com. Copyright 2014