The gender gap in the creation of startups in the Canary Islands and Spain, equality policies, sponsorship and mentoring

Due to its relevance, the gender gap is one of the four gaps that the Spain Entrepreneurial Nation Strategy of the Government of Spain aims to bridge: “Promoting female entrepreneurship means advancing in terms of gender, but it is also the opportunity to create companies that take advantage of the skills of all A business model that embraces diversity will generate environments that are more conducive to innovation, will benefit from complementary and alternative visions that are more consistent with the reality of our environment, increasing its competitiveness and projecting greater chances of success. All this will result in increased labor productivity and its contribution to the country's economic growth.”

“Ensuring that men and women have the same rights and can access the same opportunities -both in the public and private spheres- is a matter of principle”, highlights the document of the Spain Entrepreneurial Nation Strategy. “An egalitarian presence in all areas of society will be a reflection of the diversity and the real distribution of the country; It will mean the balanced incorporation of diverse perspectives, experiences and interests and the use of the capacities of all, ensuring an inclusive and sustainable growth model -according to the United Nations, sustainable development will not be possible without gender equality”.

When analyzing the distribution by professional profiles, the trends observed in Spain are similar to those of the rest of the countries: the gaps are more pronounced in STEAM professions, while they are decreasing in sales and marketing. In fact, when looking at the percentage of professionals in the ICT sector at a European level, in Spain women represent 1% of the total while the European average is 1.7%, according to one of the indicators of the Economy Index and the Digital Society 2020 (DESI).

The gender gap through the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor -the global entrepreneurship observatory that studies the behavior of entrepreneurial dynamics in 50 countries- shows that only six countries in the world have similar entrepreneurship rates between men and women (2019- 2020). In the European environment, Spain is the best positioned country: it leads parity for the sixth consecutive year, with 9 women entrepreneurs for every 10 men; the European average only has 6 women for every 10 men entrepreneurs.

The report also determines that the creation of individual wealth is not the only driver for women entrepreneurs: women who start a business aspire to change the world, compared to men, whose main motivation is profit or self-employment.

From a venture capital perspective, women are underrepresented on both the founder and investor sides. All Raise is an American organization that works to reduce the gender gap by encouraging female investors to participate in venture capital funds that invest in business projects led by women. According to their report All In Women in the VC Ecosystem, some progress has been made in recent years.

According to data from Pitchbook, the activity of startups founded by women has quadrupled in ten years in the world and the investments made by women have also multiplied by four between 2010 and 2018. In addition, startups founded by at least one woman achieve exit in less time (6.4 years compared to 74 years for the rest of the companies), which is undoubtedly a key metric of their success. In addition, as published by South Summit in 2018, startups led by women have a lower failure rate than projects led by men, 22% compared to 51% respectively.

Sponsorship and mentoring for women

Despite the progress and achievements made, there is still a long way to go to ensure equal representation of women in management and responsibility positions in companies. Although according to a study by McKinsey & Company in 2019, 87% of companies are highly committed to gender diversity in their teams -which represents an increase from 56% in 2012-, the number of women in management positions remains markedly lower than that of men: for every 100 men who were promoted to leadership positions, only 72 women did.

To continue reversing this trend, it is essential that young women have role models, that they have support in building confidence in their abilities, that they generate connections that help them create their professional network, that they have mentors who have experienced the same situations as that they begin to face and that guide them when it comes to detecting opportunities and paths of personal and professional development.

To direct this effort, the Public Administration will launch a program that connects leading women in the fields of large companies, entrepreneurship and innovation with young women with high potential and skills who are studying or starting their professional careers in these fields. This program will consist of sponsorship and mentoring activities so that experienced women can inspire and support young female talent.

For this, it will be essential to identify referent women, give them visibility as role models and generate connection spaces so that successful professionals can share knowledge, experiences and recommendations with other women and thus overcome the social and cultural barriers of the work and entrepreneurial environment. In addition, the Public Administrations will support and promote other private or public-private programs that develop female entrepreneurial leadership.

The Spain Entrepreneurial Nation Strategy aims to promote the activity of women investors and women's interest in investment, as well as a higher percentage of women founding or joining professional investment groups. The Government of Spain wants to propose training actions and advisory and support services in the investment process. The objective will be to provide diversification to the investment process in terms of perspectives, approaches and interests in order to complement the contribution of value to the projects invested.

The case of the Canary Islands

In the Canary Islands, the initiatives of innovative women entrepreneurs continue to grow, and have the support of a public network of support for innovation and innovative entrepreneurship. The data recorded by the Network of Innovation and Business Development Centers of the Government of the Canary Islands highlights that 25 percent of the success stories advised in 2020 by the CIDE Network are projects led by women.

The Government of the Canary Islands promotes the incorporation of the gender perspective in a transversal way in the initiatives that it develops in the autonomous community, and promotes female talent by putting resources, opportunities and all the means available for this purpose, such as aid lines and subsidies, with advice and support in terms of financing, with the promotion of visibility programs and through strategies of access to knowledge for new entrepreneurs.

It is necessary to establish policies in the Canary Islands to promote the growth of startups with female leadership. The study “Female digital entrepreneurship in Spain, situation and prospects”, edited by the Women's Institute, suggests incentives for women in their digital entrepreneurship through scholarships, training, tax advantages, specific financing programs; business angels commit to financing at least 30% of companies created by women.

The document also suggests creating specific entrepreneurship training programs aimed at women; make companies made up of women more visible in events, fairs and the media, also reaching at least 30%; the creation or improvement of programs in universities for female entrepreneurship; creating more powerful networks

*Translated by Daniel Rodríguez