56% of new individual entrepreneurs in Ukraine in 2023 were opened by women

Women Entrepreneurs

Starting from February 2023, every second new business in Ukraine is opened by women. The number of women entrepreneurs has increased noticeably since the beginning of fall. Currently, 60% of the new businesses belong to women. Just to compare, in 2021, businesses opened by women made up 49% of the total new businesses.

As of mid-November, the number of new women entrepreneurs is already higher than for the entire year of 2021: 154,388 businesswomen compared to 141,575.

However, it’s worth noting that the overall number of new businesses this year is already greater than in 2021: 274,859 compared to 262,933.

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Gender Distribution of Private Entrepreneur Registrations

Month	January 2021	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December	January 2022	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December	January 2023	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November
Women	8,737	10,863	11,574	11,209	10,531	12,883	14,079	12,508	14,094	12,062	12,247	10,788	11,894	10,648	771	5,148	6,487	7,956	8,589	9,768	9,822	8,500	7,734	5,647	8,292	8,300	11,449	11,171	14,272	18,009	16,164	17,702	21,670	20,160	7,199
Men	8,607	10,015	11,301	11,446	10,256	11,992	13,394	11,372	13,012	11,489	11,577	9,786	11,054	10,670	1,145	7,278	8,569	9,630	10,116	9,931	9,914	8,502	7,847	6,039	8,293	7,823	9,799	9,756	10,796	12,802	11,897	12,497	13,117	12,355	5,003

For the second year in a row, women are opening more individual businesses than men in Khmelnytskyi. However, in 2023, there has been an increase in female entrepreneurs starting new ventures in Poltava and Chernihiv. Surprisingly, the smallest percentage of women entrepreneurs was found in the capital city and in the areas near the front lines in Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.

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Women CEOs

Unlike the rapid growth of women entrepreneurship, the percentage of women in leadership roles in companies is not increasing as quickly. In the first year of the full-scale invasion, the proportion of women CEOs dropped by almost 5 percentage points to 28%. This year, the situation is returning to the 2021 levels, with the percentage of women CEOs in companies already increasing to 31%. Overall, since the beginning of the year, 32.8 thousand new companies have been opened in Ukraine.

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Gender Distribution of CEOs in New Companies

Month	January 2021	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December	January 2022	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December	January 2023	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November
Women	2,079	1,621	1,741	1,724	1,279	1,541	1,480	1,398	1,541	1,232	1,553	1,532	1,008	1,106	132	579	810	932	808	940	872	715	760	743	632	809	968	919	1,047	1,089	986	1,104	1,034	1,131	480
Men	2,317	3,152	3,620	3,399	2,606	2,911	2,829	2,650	2,820	2,423	3,146	3,116	2,043	2,753	350	1,493	1,998	2,224	2,137	2,009	2,159	1,900	2,032	1,931	1,548	1,906	2,247	2,002	2,219	2,140	1,959	2,209	2,247	2,191	1,078

Women most often lead newly created companies in Chernihiv, Chernivtsi, and Kirovohrad regions. On the other hand, the fewest women CEOs for the second year in a row are found in Kyiv and its surrounding region, as well as in Poltava and Cherkasy regions.

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