FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                      
Feb. 28, 2025                                    
                                                
Ministry of SMEs and Startups Announces Results of 2024 Women-Owned Business Survey

SEJONG – On February 27, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) released the findings of the 2024 Women-Owned Business Survey based on data from 2023.

This nationally approved survey is released annually under Article 7 of the Act on Support for Women-Owned Businesses to assess the general status, financial performance, education, challenges, and overall conditions of women-owned businesses. The survey serves as a reference for developing support policies for women-owned businesses.

According to the results, women-owned businesses showed improvements in stability and productivity compared to 2022, while profitability and activity levels decreased.
  * Improvements: Stability (debt ratio decreased from 135.2% to 123.1%) and productivity Average sales per employee increased from KRW 205 million to KRW 208 million).
 ** Decreases: Profitability (net profit margin decreased from 5.1% to 3.5%) and activity levels (equity turnover ratio decreased from 2.2 times to 1.5 times).

The proportion of companies with export experience and the export volume relative to total revenue both increased by 0.5 percentage points compared to 2022. Although the experience of investment in research and development remained similar to 2022, the average investment amount saw a significant increase.
  * Export experience (1.9% → 2.4%), proportion of export volume relative to total revenue (2.6% → 3.1%)
 ** Research and development investment experience (4.3% → 4.2%), average amount of research and development investment (KRW 118 million → KRW 249 million)

The top strength perceived by female entrepreneurs is ‘attention to detail’ (42.1%), while the primary weakness is ‘willingness to pursue challenge’ (38.4%). The area where female entrepreneurs feel most disadvantaged compared to male entrepreneurs is ‘work-life balance burden’ (36.6%). Among the key support policies, the support needed for growth ranks as follows: 1st ‘financial support’ (31.7%), 2nd ‘tax support’ (29.8%), 3rd ‘human resources support’ (16.1%), and 4th ‘market access support’ (14.8%). In terms of perceived effectiveness, ‘financial support’ was the most highly regarded at 90.8%.

The experience rate of supplying to government agencies through public procurement is 14.0%, with 77.0% of respondents finding it helpful.

Among the major factors affecting business activities, the impact of ‘overall economic recession leading to decreased demand’ has decreased from 54.6% in 2022 to 51.3% in 2023. Meanwhile, ‘increase in costs such as labor and raw materials’ rose from 39.3% to 40.6%, and ‘intensified competition among companies’ increased from 37.7% to 38.6%.
Regarding the capabilities needed for overseas expansion, female entrepreneurs identified the ability to hold international certification qualifications as the most deficient (59.2%). The most selected country for expansion, both among those who have entered international markets and those wishing to do so, is the United States.

Kim Jeong-ju, Director General of SMEs Strategy and Planning, stated, “To effectively support the growth of women-owned businesses, which are increasingly contributing to and becoming crucial for our economic growth, we will develop the ‘2nd Five-Year Master Plan for Facilitating Activities of Women-Owned Businesses’ by the end of this year. This plan will reflect the status and policy needs of women-owned businesses highlighted in this survey.”