Gen Z women are having a moment when it comes to business.
According to new findings, the youngest generation of working women are founding businesses more than women in other age groups.
The data comes from a Gusto survey released this month of more than 1,000 business owners (men and women) who started businesses in 2025. While in 2024 women started nearly as many businesses as men, the new survey shows that number fell to 44% the following year.
However, one group of women stood out when it came to starting businesses: Gen Z, which did so in higher numbers than the older generations.
Of all women who started businesses in 2025, 47% of Gen Z women did so, compared with 38% the previous year. Gen Xers followed close behind at 46%. Then came millennials at 43% and baby boomers at just 23%.
Additionally, Gen Z women who are parents are founding businesses at a faster rate than comparable men. Women entrepreneurs of the generation are twice as likely as their male counterparts to be caregivers to children, the survey shows. Nearly 20% of Gen Z women who were new business owners were parents, while only 11% of men also were.
In fact, parenting may be a reason more women are leaning into entrepreneurship to begin with; 15% of female business owners said parenting motivated them to start a business, while only 1% of men said the same.
While starting a business when you have children at home has challenges, no doubt, the move might make a lot of practical sense. Women have left the workforce in record numbers recently: 455,000 women from January to August of last year. The biggest reason they did so: the cost of childcare.
It looks as though some women, eager to manage their own company and schedule, are leaning toward entrepreneurship instead of working for The Man—who may or may not offer things like flexible hours, paid time off, or a big enough salary to cover the staggering cost of childcare.
Also driving the business ownership trend for women is Black women. Overall, in 2025, 69% of new Black-owned businesses were started by women.
The survey also found that women business owners are less likely than their male counterparts to depend on AI, confirming previous research on the topic. While 16.2% of Gen Z men said they wouldn’t have started their business without access to artificial intelligence (or would’ve started a different kind of business), only 2.4% of Gen Z women said the same. It appears young women entrepreneurs are far less dependent on technological advances than men, for better or for worse.
Either way, when it comes to launching new businesses, the research suggests that Gen Z women, including many who are parents, can’t be held back.