Women continue to be held back from launching their own companies by a range of barriers including education, stereotypes, lack of confidence and difficulties with access to finance and access to networks. Female creativity and entrepreneurial potential are an under-exploited source of economic growth and new jobs that should be further developed. Encouraging the creation of more women-led businesses will not only bring fresh and creative business ideas, but will also empower the role of women in the society and create new sources of prosperity and jobs. The Commission has just published a study on statistical data on women entrepreneurs in Europe, which shows that women entrepreneurs constitute 29% of entrepreneurs (11.6 million) in Europe*. Since 2008 there has been a slight increase of 3% of women entrepreneurs in the EU. In Europe women constitute the majority of one person enterprises (78%). The areas of business that women prefer are health and social work activities, services and education.

*EU-28 + Albania, FYROM, Iceland, Israel, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Turkey