Where are the female entrepreneurs of the world? Perhaps unsurprisingly, mostly in North America.
A new report called the Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking 2015 released by market research company Compass has ranked the best cities for women to found startups. Among the top five are Chicago, Boston, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles followed by the first Canadian city on the list, Montreal.
Toronto, meanwhile, ranks eighth, behind Paris and Tel Aviv, but is ahead of Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, London and Moscow.
According to researchers, even among these cities, gender equality is non-existent. Even Chicago’s female founders make up only 30 per cent of the total.
“No ecosystem comes close to an equal share of male and female founders, although psychologists and sociologists continue to debate whether 50/50 is the target to strive for,” the report said.
Yet across the globe, numbers of female entrepreneurs is increasing. Between 2012 and 2015, the number has climbed from 10 per cent of startups with female founders among the top cities to 18 per cent.