More Women-Owned Businesses are Important; New Government Programs may not be

Strickland and Burr at once proclaim the utility of generally employeeless and undercapitalized sole proprietorships for women having few work options and assert that enough of these small businesses grow big that the group as a whole benefits the national economy. They miscast the first function as primarily facilitating the second. For many women, small business ownership is a short-term last resort and perhaps the sole way now to enlist some in service to the national economy. Greater national gain in the form of job growth and income enhancement, however, can be achieved in the longer term by diverting capital and labor to the wage and salary sector Policy fostering women's ownership of small business should have as its principal target women, not small business per se. Subsidies paid women-owned businesses impose opportunity costs associated more with skill development than growth in gross national product. Policy's main goal should be to aid women in securing skills and using them to maximum advantage on the open market unfettered by discrimination.