Happy Women´s day
8th of March marks the International Women´s Day worldwide. Today we celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. It is also a day where we make a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
Every year it is discussed if we need a women’s day, because a lot of countries have equality. However, recent study show that this is not true and even a progressive country such as Norway have a significant pay gap. For example, the average monthly salary of a women in Norway is 87,6 % of men’s (SSB).
There can also be found other inequalities based on gender in the Norwegian society. One of the topics we would like to raise awareness about is the start-up companies, and gap between male and female founders.
In Norway only 1 out of 3 founders are women. There are many reasons for this, but a study done by Menon Economics shows that female founders are more unlikely to get investors and have have lower chance of succeeding because of this.
BRGN co-founders
BRGN is a company founded by two strong women, Karine Lunde Trellevik and Ros-Mari Gaundal. When we last year celebrated 5 years, we hit a milestone that put female founders on the map.
I Norway only 30 % of new established businesses make it past 5 years, this is regardless if the company has a female or male founder. Being a part of the 30 % that makes it shows that we as females can do anything.
If you wish to hear more about the success story of our brand, CEO and co-founder Ros-Mari is speaking at DNB event today at 7 PM. The event is in Norwegian and online, click here to get to the event. (Free admission).
The road ahead
With all of these studies showing that you as a female need to work harder to achieve your dream. You might be left wondering - Why should I bother?
Because we believe in you, and even if we as a country are moving a bit slow towards equality we are moving in the right direction. And also:
- In 2019 the sitting government presented an action plan with 13 measures they can do to get more female founders.
- More than 5000 girls established a youth start up in 2018. Those girls made up 46 prosent of all the participants. Showing that we are moving in the right direction.
- With more females investors entering the market the percentage of female founders will increase.
We need to sheer on female founders, and make it easier for them to start their own company.
Sources:
Action plan with 13 measurments
Study on female founders in Norway / Menon Economics