A Woman’s World: Best Metros for Female Entrepreneurs and Execs

BizJournals recently released the results of its extensive study on the best metros for ambitious female executives and entrepreneurs. The BizJournals researchers set out to an one question: “Which places give a woman the best chance of starting a company or climbing the corporate ladder?”

Bizjournals’ study focused on the nation’s largest 100 metros, the populations of which account for 65% of the total U.S. population. BizJournals created a nine-part formula to produce a “gender equity score” for each market. Here are the nine parts.
1. Number of woman-owned businesses (sole proprietorships and companies with employees), expressed as a ratio per 10,000 local residents (based on 2002 population)

2. Average annual revenues for a woman-owned business

3. Average number of employees at a woman-owned business (excluding sole proprietorships)

4. Average annual pay for an employee of a woman-owned business

5. Percentage of women (25 or older) who held bachelor’s degrees

6. Percentage of women who held advanced degrees (master’s, doctoral or professional)

7. Percentage of female workers who were paid $100,000 or more per year

8. Median pay for female workers, expressed as a ratio per $1,000 of median pay for male workers

9. Percentage of all management and professional jobs that were held by women

The highest scores in Bizjournals’ rankings went to markets where a substantial number of well-educated, well-paid women hold responsible positions in local businesses. Average annual pay was given less weight so that larger, higher cost markets would not skew the scores.

The San Francisco-Oakland, CA metro area was the runaway winner. It was the only area that scored in the top 3 for entrepreneurship (306 women-owned businesses/10,000 residents), education (41.9% of women hold bachelor’s degrees) and pay levels (7.5% of all women earn $100k+).

Here’s the rest of the Top 10:

2. Washington, DC (280 women-owned businesses/10,000 residents, 44% hold bachelor’s degrees, 6.9% earn $100k+)

3. New York, NY (274, 33.6%, 5.2%)

4. Los Angeles, CA (272, 27.5%, 4.2%)

5. Madison, WI (239, 39.6%, 2.4%)

6. Boston, MA (264, 39.6%, 4.6%)

7. Denver, CO (299, 36.1%, 3.1%)

8. Columbus, OH (234, 30.3%, 1.9%)

9. Atlanta, GA (272, 33.4%, 3.3%)

10. New Haven, CT (207, 31.5%, 3.5%)

The dubious distinction of worst market for female execs and entrepreneurs goes to Ogden, UT, where there are 204 women-owned businesses/10,000 residents, 23.3% hold bachelor’s degrees and a dismal 0.6% earn $100k+. Further dragging Ogden down is the archaic ratio of the average woman’s pay per $1000 for men (Ogden’s women earn $503 for every $1000 paid to a man).

Other highlights from the study include the following:

Women are paid less than men in every market (still?!) - Vegas (really?!) is nearest to parity at $774 (per $1,000 for men); #1-ranked SF-Oakland ranked fifth at $748.
Three Texas metros (El Paso, McAllen-Edinburg, San Antonio) ranked #1, #2 and #6 for the percentage of women holding management and professional positions (46%, 45.7% and 42.9%, respectively).
San Jose has the highest percentage of women earning $100k+ (9.5%)
NYC has the largest number of women-owned businesses (nearly 511,000); L.A. is a distant second (just over 345,000)

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