Women own nearly 25% of small U.S. firms

WASHINGTON (AP) Women own nearly 25 percent of the nation'ssmall businesses, although their companies generate only 10.2 percentof all receipts, the Census Bureau said yesterday.

A new analysis of the 1982 U.S. Economic Census found that womenowned 2,884,450 businesses - 23.9 percent of all individualproprietorships, partnerships and small business corporationsoperating at that time.

The report did not include large corporations - those with morethan 25 shareholders - because researchers were not able to determinewhich of those were owned primarily by women.

Of the companies owned by women, the vast majority - 2,661,210 -were individual proprietorships. About half of the women-ownedcompanies had gross receipts of less than $5,000, the report said,while a miniscule 0.3 percent of them brought in $1 million or more.

Personal services, such as laundries and cleaning services,beauty shops, photographers and baby-sitting services, were the mostcommon business for women to be engaged in, with 419,113 women-ownedbusinesses in this category.

Real estate agencies were second with 225,551 women-ownedbusinesses, followed by health services, such as nurses, doctors anddentists, with 128,389.

California had the largest number of women-owned companies,396,294, followed by Texas with 220,221. Illinois had 121,295.