How Women in Business are Shaping the Future

By FutureLearn
Originally Published March 2023

In this article, we’ll take a look at the current business landscape, the history of women in business, and what we can expect to see in the future. As well as exploring some of the data and evidence around the subject, we’ve also spoken with some of our partners to get their expert insight. 

A brief history of women in business

Many people are unfamiliar with the fact that the history of female entrepreneurship reaches far back into the past. The first well-documented businesswomen can be traced back as far as 1870 BC to the city of Assur in northern Iraq. Assyrian women at the time often contributed to vast trading networks that flourished in the region, showing that business was not exclusive to men.

There are many more recent examples of women in business too. Margaret Hardenbroeck, for example, arrived in what would become New York in 1659 and established herself as a debt collector before becoming a business agent. She traded between Holland and the colonies, eventually becoming the wealthiest woman in New York.

Such stories are not as uncommon as you might think. Throughout the 18th Century, businesswomen traded in the world’s major cities, and there are many examples of successful female entrepreneurs owning and running their own businesses.

Mary Katherine Goddard became the first woman publisher in America in 1766, Madam C.J. Walker owned a million-dollar haircare business in the 1890s, and Coco Chanel opened her first boutique in 1913.

However, during the mid-19th Century, there was a shift in the labour force that saw women focusing more on domestic tasks, while men became the sole wage earners. Until recently, such ‘traditional’ gender roles have persisted.

In 1973, for example, there was only one female CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Katharine Graham. During this time, only 38% of the workforce in the US was women. In 2019, that number had increased to 46.2%.

Now, for the first time ever, female CEOs run more than 10% of Fortune 500 companies – that’s 53 women in total. This progress is certainly a good thing, though one could argue that 53 out of 500 is still a shockingly small proportion.

The current landscape for women in business

Clearly, the last few decades have seen at least some positive changes in terms of opportunities for, and representations of, women in the world of business.

But what does the current landscape mean for the future? We’ve picked out some of the key statistics, including current progress and challenges, which might shape the decades to come.

Women in business – the statistics

How well-represented are women in the world of business? And how many female-owned businesses are there? As you might expect, there have been many studies about these questions. Here are some of the stand-out statistics about women in business…[MORE]

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To read the entire article on the FutureLearn website, visit: How women in business are shaping the future