Global Study Flags a Women’s Business Growth Gap as Pakistan Sets Export Goal

Starting a business is only the first milestone. A new Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report finds a striking difference between women involved in high-potential early-stage ventures and women running high-potential established businesses. For Pakistan, where an official strategy sets a women-led export target for 2030, the findings put the focus on what helps firms reach and sustain their next stage.

GEM’s 2025/2026 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report, published on 8 October, draws on its 2025 Adult Population Survey of 150,799 adults across 48 economies. It introduces a high-potential measure built around innovation, export intensity and job-creation expectations. In the global survey, 6.0% of women were involved in high-potential early-stage businesses, compared with 0.1% at the established-business stage. GEM describes the latter rate as 98% lower.

Read the figures as a signal, not a failure rate

The comparison is about how common these activities were among surveyed women at different business stages. It is not a finding that 98% of individual women-led startups failed: the survey does not follow the same firms over time. GEM defines an established business as one managed by an owner-manager that has been paying salaries, wages or other payments for more than 42 months.

The report’s measure also offers a wider view of business ambition than startup counts alone. Women led about 40% of high-potential new businesses in the global sample. The implication is not that women lack ideas or growth plans. It is that fewer women appear in the high-potential established-business group than in the comparable early-stage group.

GEM identifies several patterns that may matter to that transition. In 2025, 6.7% of women reported recent business investment, compared with 9.2% of men, and women invested roughly one-third less capital on average. Women were also 55% more likely than men to cite family or personal circumstances as a reason for leaving a business. These are survey associations, not proof that any single factor explains the stage difference.

Pakistan’s export ambition needs a route to market

The global GEM rates are not Pakistan-specific estimates. For local context, Pakistan’s Trade Development Authority’s National Women Entrepreneurship and Export Development Strategy sets an objective to raise the share of women-led businesses in national exports to at least 10% by 2030. That is a policy target, not a reported result. The strategy identifies limited exposure to international markets, access to certifications and trade-compliance knowledge as issues to address.

The document proposes export training, e-commerce capacity, links to global trade platforms and participation in trade delegations. It also describes readiness support around export documents, standards, product certification, logistics, market intelligence, branding and packaging. These are proposed measures in a strategy; their inclusion does not establish that every programme is already operating.

For a woman entrepreneur in Chitral considering buyers beyond her local market, the practical work starts with a specific customer and a clear offer. A craft, food, tourism or digital-services business would each face different requirements. A founder can test demand with potential buyers, calculate the full cost of packaging and delivery, check applicable standards and documentation, and decide how customers will pay and resolve returns. Those steps do not guarantee exports, but they can reveal what must be solved before a business commits to scaling.

Support should continue after launch

GEM’s findings suggest that business-support programmes should track more than the number of people trained or enterprises started. Useful measures include whether firms remain active, whether they add jobs, how much they sell outside their home market and whether they attract appropriate capital. For lenders and investors, transparent sales records and a clear growth plan can make it easier to assess a firm on its commercial evidence rather than assumptions about its owner.

For policymakers, the report’s message is to build a bridge between entry and scale: access to working capital, buyers, reliable logistics, business networks and care-compatible support can matter after a company opens its doors. Pakistan’s 2030 export objective gives that discussion a measurable national direction, but meeting it will depend on implementation and on whether more women-led firms can sustain growth over time.

Sources

• Global Entrepreneurship Monitor — 2025/2026 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report summary
• Global Entrepreneurship Monitor — Report details and survey scope
• Global Entrepreneurship Monitor — Full 2025/2026 report PDF
• Global Entrepreneurship Monitor — Adult Population Survey and business-stage definitions
• Trade Development Authority of Pakistan — National Women Entrepreneurship and Export Development Strategy