"Despite many incentives to the development of female entrepreneurship, medium-term development strategies and efforts to include more women in business, this area still largely belongs to the male population," says the report, which the Financial Agency (FINA) published on Friday on the occasion of International Women's Entrepreneurship Day, observed on November 19.
The report analysed data from the register of annual financial statements according to the gender of business owners from 2010 to 2013. It found that the proportion of women business owners ranged from 17.3% in 2010 to 19.6% in 2013, while at the same time more than 50% of businesses were owned by men.
In 2013, 19.6% of businesses were owned by women, 52.8% by men, 12.9% by legal entities, 7.9% were in mixed ownership, while in 6.8% of cases it was not possible to determine the gender criterion.
The proportion of women among all entrepreneurs in Croatia ranged from 15% to 23%. The highest proportion of them, 23%, was recorded in Bjelovar-Bilogora County where out of 1,329 businesses 306 were owned by women and 54.2% were owned by men. Women-owned companies accounted for 5.9% of the county's revenues, 8.6% of employees and 5.1% of the total assets. In 2013, they generated a business loss of 44.8 million kuna.
It was followed by the City of Zagreb with 21%, or 6,841 companies owned by women and 52% owned by men. Women-owned businesses accounted for 2.3% of revenues, 5.1% of employees and 1.5% of assets. In 2013, they generated a profit of 264 million kuna.
The only sector of the economy where women were more represented than men was the services sector, with women accounting for 49.5% of all business owners and men accounting for 35.3%.
Men-owned companies employed several times more workers, generated considerably higher revenues and possessed more assets, which indicated considerably greater involvement of the male population in entrepreneurship, the report concluded.