Survey: Women support Ukraine’s business environment

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, thousands of Ukrainian women have joined Ukraine's armed forces, started actively volunteering, and helped the state on various fronts, including the economic one. Using the YC Market tool, experts of the R&D center of YouControl analyzed the influence of women on the support of various spheres of Ukrainian business during the war year by continuing the activities of existing companies and opening new ones.

The full version of the survey is available on the YC.Market website.

• Fields, women choose more often

According to the data of the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs, and Public Organizations, most companies (legal entities) operating as of March 1, 2023, owned by women, belong to the tourism sector. There are 7.6 thousand such enterprises registered in Ukraine, which is 51.7% of the total number of travel agencies. The educational activity took the second step. 3.5 thousand companies in the field of education are owned by women, and this is 49.3% of this market. Companies in the "Real Estate Operations" category were on the third step. Women own 26,600 companies in this sector, which is 42.7% of the market.

On the other hand, the most unpopular among women is the field of water supply and disposal – 1.3 thousand companies, which is 20.1% of the market. Slightly better indicators in the field of construction – 22.4 thousand companies are owned by women (26.3% of the market). The IT industry is among the top 3 not very popular areas under the control of business women: 6.9 thousand women-owned companies make up 26.4% of the information technology market.

• Geography of the presence of companies owned by women

In general, 306.2 thousand companies (legal entities) whose beneficiaries are women are registered throughout Ukraine. This number is 32.8% of all companies registered in the country. To compare the distribution by region, the share of those companies whose owners are women was considered.

The partially occupied Donetsk region ranks second – 15,200 companies owned by women make up 36% of all businesses in the region. Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia regions occupy the third, fourth, and fifth places in terms of percentage distribution, respectively – 35%.

The largest number of registered companies is naturally in Kyiv – 94.8 thousand companies with female owners are registered in the capital, but this is 31.2% of the total number of registered and active companies in the city, below the national average. The smallest share of companies is in the Sumy region; women own 30.5% of all companies in the region.

• The impact of a full-scale war

russia's full-scale war against Ukraine caused irreparable damage to Ukraine. The influence of the war year also affected the dynamics of opening new companies by women: it decreased by 4.4% compared to 2021.

Regarding the sectoral distribution, in the period from February 24, 2022, to February 24, 2023, the spheres of education and health care were the most noticeably replenished with new players: the presence of women-owned companies increased in each – plus 4.1 and 7.8 percentage points, respectively, compared to average shares in the economy.

The education sector has moved to the first step – during the year, women opened 95 companies in this field, which accounted for 53.4% of the market. The "Health care" sector took the second step – 49.3% (113 companies). Among the leaders in terms of the share of firms founded by women are also companies working in the field of "Media and cinema."

Tourism suffered the biggest losses: naturally, the share of women-owned companies decreased by 14 percentage points relative to the usual average indicator of this field.