Franchising holds a special attraction for women in that it provides the necessary safety net that a normal start-up business does not provide and women are particularly good at working within a system.

Women entrepreneurs are opting for franchise options where they can work from home as they often have to fill additional roles such as that of wife and/or mother.

There has recently been a resurgence of “female” franchises, such as beauty salons, slimming salons, nail bars as well as franchises in the education, accessory and arts and crafts area that are attracting the female entrepreneur. FASA’s latest franchise survey shows that, when it comes to business ownership by women, the average percentage ownership is 25%. The sectors with the highest incidence of female ownership are the Health, Beauty and Body Culture and the Childcare, Education and Training sectors.

There are also quite a number of women in the fast food franchise market, in the retail sector and in the service sector although many tend to co-partner their husbands in the ventures.

It is said that women are often better at managing small businesses because they are more organized – after all they also have experience in managing their families, and managing their businesses is an extension of that.  They are good at people management, team work and negotiation.  They also like to be creative, and they like the idea of the support network, which makes franchising especially attractive.