Poland ranked as best country in EU and fifth in world for female entrepreneurs

Poland is the fifth best country in the world for female entrepreneurs, and the best in the European Union, according to a new ranking.

The findings are from the latest Index of Women Entrepreneurs compiled annually by Mastercard. It analyses the factors that facilitate or inhibit the business success of women in 58 countries that together represent almost 80% of the world’s female labour force.

The ranking was topped by Israel, followed by the United States and Switzerland. Then came New Zealand and Poland, who were ahead of the United Kingdom and Canada. After Poland, the next highest ranked EU countries were Sweden (eighth) and Spain (tenth), with Australia between them.

Mastercard noted that Poland was one of the countries that has “advanced strongly” in fostering a positive environment for female entrepreneurs, having risen 11 places from last year’s index.

Poland was praised for narrowing the gender gap in entrepreneurial activity from 25% to 10% as well as increasing its rating for “cultural perceptions of entrepreneurs”.

The country also scored particularly highly in Mastercard’s assessment of “women’s advancement outcomes”, which takes account of women business leaders, professionals and technical workers, women’s entrepreneurial activity rate, and women’s labour force participation.

Poland ranked fourth globally for these combined factors, with Mastercard pointing to the fact that around 40% of business leadership positions are occupied by women. Among Polish businesses, 30% are owned by women, the twelfth highest figure among the countries included in the index.

“Poland’s advancement in the ranking is a great example of how the use of gender-specific support mechanisms can quickly bring visible results,” said Mastercard, quoted by 300Gospodarka, a Polish business news service.

“Positive indicators [include] institutional support for small- and medium-sized enterprises, which increased by 50% compared to 2019, and a related improvement in cultural perception of entrepreneurship,” the firm continued.

The latest index follows others that have also placed Poland highly. The country was ranked eighth in the latest version of The Economist’s Glass-ceiling Index, which gives a score for the quality of the environment for working women.

That put Poland well ahead of Britain (23rd), the United States (22nd) and Germany (20th), and behind only the Nordic countries, France and Belgium. The Economist found that women hold 42.5% of managerial positions in Poland, a higher figure than in any other country in the index.

PwC’s Women in Work index also puts Poland in eighth place, noting that it has made some of the largest improvements since 2000. Female boardroom representation, however, remains very low in Poland (as it does elsewhere in the CEE region), at just 10.0%.

According to Eurostat data, Poland has the sixth smallest gender pay gap in the EU, of 8.8%, well below the bloc’s average of 14.8%. Poland’s figure has, however, been increasing: in 2011, it stood at 5.5%, which was then the lowest in the EU.

Main image credit: PxHere

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.