Mumbai: Even as Asia, including India, has a higher proportion of entrepreneurs compared to the rest of the world, the number of women business owners is much below the global average, according to a recent report.

"The number of female business owners in Asia is still trailing levels seen amongst their male counterparts and below the global average," says a new research report from Barclays Wealth and Investment Management.

This, it says, is despite Asia having a higher proportion of entrepreneurs (47 percent) compared to the US (29 percent) and Europe (30 percent).

This new report finds that 39 percent of high net worth (HNW) women in Asia classify themselves as business owners, which is far below the 50 percent of high net worth men in Asia.

Globally, 44 percent of HNW women and 49 percent of HNW men classify themselves as business owners.

It also shows that the gender pay gap is wider for non-entrepreneurs compared to entrepreneurs.

Non-entrepreneur women earn significantly more than non-entrepreneur men, while male entrepreneurs make slightly more than their female counterparts, it shows.

However, this trend is reverse globally, where among the high net worth female entrepreneurs earn 14 percent more than their male counterparts.

In contrast, the average income of a high net worth woman who does not own her own business is 21 percent lower than the corresponding average male income, it adds.

For the research, more than 2,000 high net worth individuals were interviewed and in Asia 500 respondents were surveyed, of which over 200 respondents were entrepreneurs.

The report further says that a higher proportion of entrepreneurs in Asia value the role of failure in contributing to future success more than their global counterparts.

Only 60 percent of male entrepreneurs and 51 percent of female entrepreneurs agree that past failure in entrepreneurial endeavors increases their chances of success in a new business, it points out.

However, the Barclays research shows that globally female business owners tend to value past failures less than their male counterparts.

While 70 percent of male business owners agree that past failure in entrepreneurial endeavors increases the chances that a new business will succeed, this figure falls to 65 percent for female business owners.

"Today women are at a threshold where they are moving from being a back door decision maker to board room decision maker. The present generation is supportive of women actively being engaged in family business, starting their own entrepreneurial ventures and acquiring professional education," Barclays, Wealth and Investment Management Chief Executive (India) Satya Bansal said.

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