Lost Count
The U.S. Census Bureau gets stingier about classifying businesses as women-owned.
By Cynthia E. Griffin •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Does your business count? Perhaps not-at least, not under newdefinitions that the Census Bureau used when performing its mostrecent survey of women-owned businesses.
In its 1992 survey, the Census Bureau defined women-ownedbusinesses as those with female ownership of 50 percent or more,including public companies. But in its recently released "1997Survey of Women-Owned Business Enterprises," the Census Bureauchanged its definition to include only privately held companieswith 51 percent or more female ownership. The result? According tothe survey, the number of women-owned businesses dropped from 6.4million in 1992 to 5.4 million.
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