And the Survey Says: Men Twice as Likely as Women to Start a New Business

A new survey by the Kauffman Foundation shows that the percentage of U.S. women starting a business has dropped to its lowest level in at least 12 years.

Their annual entrepreneurial survey showed that the activity rate for women starting businesses dipped to 0.2 % in 2007 down from 0.23 % in 2006. In contrast, the entrepreneurial activity rate for men increased to 0.41% in 2007 up from 0.35% in 2006.

The study is based on data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The author of the study, Robert Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, admits he was surprised to see the decline in entrepreneurial activity by women.

"I don't have any explanation for why it dropped," he says. "One possibility is that female entrepreneurs have more trouble finding capital than men, and maybe this worsened in 2007 as financing became tighter."

There was an overall upturn in the percentage of the U.S. population involved in business start-up activity in the 20-64 age bracket with nearly 300 out of each 100,000 adults involved in entrepreneurial activity.

Another major trend in the survey --the entrepreneurial activity rate among Latinos increased from 0.33 % in 2006 to 0.40 % in 2007, the largest increase for any major ethnic or racial group.

The places with the highest entrepreneurial activity rates were in Atlanta, Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Miami and Riverside-San Bernardino, California.