The study found that last year 26,676 companies or 22% were solely owned by women, while an additional 12,518 companies were co-owned by women with men and/or legal entities, which puts the total proportion of women entrepreneurs at 31.3%.
It also revealed that the proportion of women owners/founders of companies had gradually increased from 2010 to 2018, as the proportion of companies owned solely by women was 17.3% in 2010 and 22% in 2018.
Between 2014 and 2018, the proportion of women entrepreneurs in the total number of companies ranged from the lowest proportion of 27.7% in 2015 to the highest proportion of 31.8% in 2016.
"In 2018, the proportion of women entrepreneurs in the total number of companies was 31.3%, although according to an estimate by the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS), in mid-2018 Croatia had a population of 4,087,843 inhabitants, including 1,975,052 men (48.3%) and 2,112,791 women (51.7%)," Fina said.
Of the total of 121,034 companies, 57.9% were owned solely by men, 7% were owned by legal entities, 1.2% were co-owned by men and legal entities, while for 2.7% of companies it was not possible to determine which group they belonged to.
At 57.2%, women entrepreneurs dominated the "other services" sector. In this sector, 4,093 businesses employed 10,500 people, of whom 4,277 were employed in companies owned by women and 3,440 were employed by companies owned by men.
In nominal terms, the largest number of women entrepreneurs were involved in professional, scientific and technical activities, with 6,054 of them generating total revenues of HRK 3.3 billion. Of 19,565 companies in this sector, 30.9% were owned by women and an additional 2,330 were co-owned by women with men and/or legal entities as company founders.
The highest income per employee, of HRK 961,200, and the highest profit per employee, of HRK 88,100, were generated by women entrepreneurs in water supply, wastewater disposal, waste management and environmental remediation activities.
There is still a larger proportion of women in the ownership structure of companies in the services sector, meaning that there is a smaller difference in the ownership structure between women and men owners, while companies in other, mostly manufacturing activities are predominantly owned by men, FINA said.
Men-owned companies employ several times more people, generate higher revenues and hold more assets than those owned by women, which indicates greater involvement of male population in business, it added.
"The situation is changing, albeit slowly, despite incentives for the development of women's entrepreneurship, medium-term development strategies and efforts to include women, as much as possible, in the business sector, which for the greater part still belongs to men," FINA said.