A Record High of 3.26 Million Women-Owned Small Businesses... 40.5% of All Companies

Increase in Number of Companies, Employees, and Sales

The number of women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South Korea has reached an all-time high.

The Women’s Economic Research Institute announced the "Status of Women-Owned SMEs as of 2022" on the 26th. This status report was analyzed based on the 2022 Basic Statistics on SMEs and the National Business Survey, which were released last October.

Comparison Table of Male and Female-Owned Small and Medium Enterprises as of 2022. Provided by the Women’s Economic Research Institute.

According to the report, the number of women-owned SMEs in South Korea reached 3,259,211, an increase of 122,668 (3.9%, compared to 4.5% for men) from the previous year. However, due to a decrease in the number of businesses with two employees, the growth rate narrowed by 2.4 percentage points compared to the previous year.

The number of employees was 5,419,156, an increase of 136,143 (2.6%, compared to 2.5% for men) from the previous year, and sales also rose to 626.2336 trillion KRW, up 61.6024 trillion KRW (10.9%, compared to 9.4% for men) from the previous year.

By industry, women-owned SMEs are still largely concentrated in wholesale and retail trade, real estate, and accommodation and food services, accounting for 64.7% (compared to 43.8% for men in the same industries).

Looking at the three-year average growth rate, technology-based industries such as manufacturing and knowledge-based service industries are growing faster at 9.6%, compared to 7.1% for men.

By company size, among all women-owned enterprises, micro-businesses accounted for 97.5% (compared to 93.5% for men), indicating a predominance of small-scale companies. Regionally, both women and men ranked Gyeonggi first (women 26.1%, men 26.3%), Seoul second, and Busan third.

By employee size, women-owned SMEs have a high proportion of single-employee businesses at 81.1% (compared to 73.3% for men).

By organizational form, women-owned SMEs operate as sole proprietorships at a rate of 92.6%, higher than men’s 83.7%, indicating a greater tendency to run businesses as individual enterprises.

However, examining the three-year average growth rate, sole proprietorships grew by 4.6% for women-owned SMEs and 4.7% for men, while corporations grew faster at 11.2% for women-owned SMEs and 7.0% for men, showing a relatively rapid expansion of corporate forms among women-owned SMEs.

By business age, 33.7% of women-owned SMEs have been operating for more than seven years, which is lower than men’s 44.2%, but the proportion of startups operating for three years or less is higher at 38.1%, compared to 31.3% for men.

The employment share of female workers in women-owned enterprises accounts for 71.7% of total employees, which is 2.3 times higher than men’s 31.4%.

Through this analysis, the key characteristics of women-owned SMEs are as follows: they are ▲ most concentrated in the Gyeonggi region, ▲ have average sales of 190 million KRW, ▲ have an average of 1.7 employees, ▲ are mainly engaged in wholesale and retail trade, and ▲ operate as sole proprietorships.

Lee Jeong-han, Director of the Institute, stated, “Despite the challenging domestic and international economic conditions, our women-owned enterprises continue to grow,” and added, “The Women’s Economic Research Institute will closely monitor the status of women-owned enterprises to derive effective policy measures in the future.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.