Less than a third of self-employed entrepreneurs were women in 2019, according to Belgian statistical office STATBEL, which released the figures on the occasion of International Women's Day on 8 March.
This is the first time the official statistical office has mapped women entrepreneurship, using the latest complete data available from 2019.
Only self-employed people who were not working as helpers were taken into account, which in concrete terms concerns 1,433,477 positions of founders, directors and managers of Belgian companies, of which 30% were women in 2019.
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The health sector is the only sector where women are in the majority, with 59% of the self-employed. The other two most women-dominated sectors are other services (46%) and education (44%).
At the other end of the spectrum, the presence of women falls to 7% in construction and to 14% in the information and communication sector and in the transport and storage sector.
Women entrepreneurs least present in Brussels-Capital Region
The presence of women is proportionally lower in Brussels companies (26%) than in the other regions (31%).
Women are also proportionally more present in the lower age groups: 40% of self-employed entrepreneurs under the age of 30 are women. In the most common age group, the 50-59 year olds, that falls to 28%.
“The same trend can be observed in all sectors: the higher the age, the fewer women are represented,” STATEBEL reports.
“For example, the professions and scientific and technical activities sector is almost equally represented by men and women under the age of 30, but in the 40-49 age group only one third of the positions are held by women.”
