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12/31/12 | Uncategorized

The Next Billion – Women Entrepreneurs (Infographic)

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By Anna Vital (Co-Founder, Vash.co; Founder, Funders & Founders)

Today, there are 380 million entrepreneurs globally. That means for every 19 people you meet – one will be an entrepreneur. What are the other 18 doing? What are they doing that makes money without them creating/inventing opportunities? One might think they all have jobs, but they don’t – only 61% of world’s population have any sort of a job.

Now let’s deduct all the youth below 18 years old, seniors over 65, and we get roughly 1 billion – the number of people that don’t have anything to put in their “occupation” field. So, who are these people? And what is going on with them?

This billion turns out to be women – mostly the uneducated and domestic kind.. This billion live their lives “outside the economic system.” What does that really mean? They produce and consume everything inside their household. Basically, they are housewives. 94% of these women live in developing countries, don’t have high school education and live in families or communities where those close to them don’t want them to work.

Here is why it matters to you: in the next 7 to 8 years, these women are going to shut down their kitchens, leave the housework behind and go make some money.

How do you think they are going to do this? Would you hire an uneducated woman that never worked a day in her life?.. Exactly, they won’t be getting jobs – they will become entrepreneurs. And here is the catch – they will have absolutely nothing to lose – so they will be ruthless, and really good at business.

The International Labor Organization says that “the global economy has substantially reduced its capacity to add jobs.” If there are fewer jobs, what else are you going to do? Be entrepreneur or get welfare. For these women, welfare is not an option, so you will be seeing them creating opportunities.

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Women 2.0 readers: How can we prepare for or encourage these burgeoning women entrepreneurs in the next billion? Let us know in the comments!

About the guest blogger: Anna Vital is a co-founder of Vash.co and founder of Funders and Founders, a San Francisco-based startup promoting startupization. She has been an entrepreneur since age 14 when she opened her fist business, a test-prep school. After attending Brigham Young in Utah, she attended law school in Nanjing, China. She speaks Mandarin Chinese, English and Russian. In her ideal world, everyone from moms to engineers to executives will do startups. Follow her on Twitter at @vitalhack.

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