Women Entrepreneurs and Pay Equity

Intuit – the maker of TurboTax and QuickBooks is proud to be a sponsor of the inaugural “The 19th Represents” – a five day virtual summit that commemorates the centennial passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.  Although this is the centennial anniversary of the Amendment, its promise has not been fully realized for all American women, especially women of color and the underserved. This week diverse female voices spoke on gender and racial equality, electability, breaking the glass ceiling, and truly extending the right to vote to all women.

Throughout the week we proudly featured Allison DeVane, founder of Teaspressa and QuickBooks customer, who shares with us triumphs and challenges of being a female entrepreneur. 

On one hand, women have made great strides over the last decades: 

• The share of women-owned businesses has skyrocketed from a mere 4.6% of all businesses in 1972  to 42% in 2019. 
• Over the past five years, the number of women-owned businesses increased 21%, while all businesses increased only 9%. 
• While the number of women-owned businesses grew 21% from 2014 to 2019, firms owned by women of color grew at double that rate (43%). Numbers for African American/Black women grew even faster at 50%. Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (41%), Latina/Hispanic (40%), Asian American (37%) and Native American/Alaska Native (26%) businesses grew more slowly than for women of color in general but faster than overall women owned businesses and all businesses.

At the same time, women entrepreneurs still face unique challenges. For example, although women-owned businesses perform at least as well as those owned by men they do not have the same access to capital. A 2019 analysis by Boston Consulting Group found that “if female entrepreneurs received as much financial and other support (e.g., mentoring) as their male counterparts, global economic output could be expanded by up to $5 trillion.” And all women in business face challenges including mentoring, work-life balance, cultivating support networks and, as we heard from Allison, confidence.

At Intuit, we believe you cannot have prosperity without equality and we are here to support female entrepreneurs, like Allison, and all women in the workplace. But we are not done. 

This is why Intuit took a stand, three years ago, to hold ourselves accountable to sustaining pay equity for our employees. We believe that pay equity is a critical component to achieving equality across society. 

While we are proud of the fact we have no statistically significant pay discrepancies between employees of different gender or ethnicity doing the same job, pay equity isn’t achieved in one moment in time. It takes ongoing work, accountability, transparency and continuous analysis, and we have created a robust and continuous process to reach pay equity for our employees. All companies must join this fight.

If your organization isn’t already working on this, we encourage everyone to partner together, find allies, share stories and engage with leaders in their organization and HR teams. While the journey to pay equity can be bumpy, and it is complex, by investing in processes we all move one step closer to equality.

The work of The 19th* newsroom and their mission to empower women — “particularly those underserved by and underrepresented in American media — with the information, community and tools they need to be equal participants in our democracy” – is critical to helping women prosper in today’s society. 

Our participation this week is one small part of Intuit’s advocacy for reshaping history as we know it—as we work together to achieve equality for all. This work never stops. And neither does our fight for equality, inside and outside the walls of Intuit. Just like the 19th Amendment, we view pay equity and support for female entrepreneurship as unfinished work that can never stop. We are not done.

Please share on social your favorite advice as a woman in business and the story of why you are #NotDone and tag @Intuit.