{"id":288825,"date":"2025-11-29T00:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T00:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/288825\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T00:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T00:40:12","slug":"which-eu-countries-have-the-biggest-gender-gap-when-it-comes-to-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/288825\/","title":{"rendered":"Which EU countries have the biggest gender gap when it comes to investment?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only about one in five tech companies across Europe created between 2020 and 2025 included at least one woman founder, according to the European Commission’s The Gender Investment Gap report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even when adjusting for this disparity, companies with female founders also received less investment than firms with male founders.<\/p>\n

The highest levels of gender diversity were found in Latvia, at 27%, Italy, at 25.9 %, and Portugal, at 25.2%. These rates represent the proportion of companies with at least one female founder.<\/p>\n

In contrast, countries such as the Czech Republic (9%) and Hungary (14.4%) remain well below the European average (19.3%). <\/p>\n

Equal participation by women entrepreneurs could increase EU GDP by approximately \u20ac600 billion, with countries like Poland seeing growth of 1.6% and the Netherlands up to 5.5% by 2040, according to the 2025 Frontier Economics study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The gender investment gap refers to systematic disparities between women and men in accessing venture capital and participating in investment decision-making.<\/p>\n

Among European small and medium-sized enterprises applying for bank loans, female-owned firms report loan-approval rates about five percentage points lower than male-owned firms. That’s even after controlling for age, size, and sector, according to the European Investment Bank.<\/p>\n

Gender disparities also extend to capital ownership and investment behaviour, as data shows women are investing less in retail assets.<\/p>\n

Female retail investors currently control about \u20ac5.7 trillion in Europe, a figure projected to rise to \u20ac9.8 trillion by 2030. If women invested on a parity basis with men, Europe could mobilise an additional \u20ac2 to \u20ac3 trillion in private investable assets. <\/p>\n

“These findings point to an EU-wide economic shortfall well into the hundreds of billions of euros annually \u2013 capital that could otherwise be fuelling innovation, employment, green \u2013 and digital transitions,” the EC report stated.<\/p>\n

What is behind this gender gap?<\/p>\n

The gender investment gap has been put down to differences in risk appetite between men and women, as well as societal expectations and financial education. <\/p>\n

Historically, entrepreneurship and venture finance have been male-coded domains associated with risk-taking, assertiveness, and individualism.<\/p>\n

Decision-making bodies in venture capital and private equity remain male-dominated, reinforcing existing investment patterns.<\/p>\n

Societal expectations around women’s caregiving roles and work-life balance continue to influence their access to entrepreneurial networks and capital.<\/p>\n

According to the European Commission’s report, even in societies perceived as egalitarian, such as Nordic countries, the assumption that gender equality has already been achieved “can itself act as a barrier – masking ongoing structural biases”.<\/p>\n

Across Europe, women also face a “double exclusion” of gender and geography.<\/p>\n

European venture capital is mainly based in hubs in London, Paris, Berlin, and Stockholm, which leaves founders in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe structurally disadvantaged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only about one in five tech companies across Europe created between 2020 and 2025 included at least one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,117103,465,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-288825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-gender-bias","11":"tag-investment","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}