Collection Spotlight: Finding Companies Owned by Underrepresented Business Owners
by Stephanie JH McReynolds, Librarian for Business, Management, and Entrepreneurship
The majority of businesses in the United States are still owned by white men. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest estimates (2024), underrepresented business owners (termed “minorities” by the Census Bureau and defined as “any race and ethnic combination other than non-Hispanic and white”) owned approximately 36% of businesses. Women owned nearly 39% of businesses. This is according to combined data collected in 2021 on businesses with employees and businesses without employees. For additional statistics on firms owned by underrepresented business owners, see this fact sheet from the Minority Business Development Agency (ca. 2024).
While Census data offers broad statistics on firms owned by women and firms owned by underrepresented business owners, it does not provide the names of specific companies. To create lists of companies by either (or both) business owner demographic characteristics, you will need to use a company database such as Data Axle Reference Solutions or Mergent Intellect.
On the Advanced Search page for U.S. Businesses in Data Axle Reference Solutions, you will find filters for “Executive Gender,” with a checkbox for male or female (only this binary for gender is available in the database), and “Executive Ethnicity,” with dropdown menu options such as “African American” and “Middle Eastern.” It should be noted that both gender and ethnicity are based on Data Axle name modeling data, and that the database lists the ethnicity of a significant number of executives as “Unknown.”
For U.S. companies, Mergent Intellect’s Advanced Search page includes filters for “Minority Owned” and “Women Owned” under “Company Criteria.” Like all company profile information in the database, sources of data include government filings, certifications, and other data sources.
To find small U.S. businesses that have created a business profile as part of registering to be eligible for government contracts, use the publicly available Dynamic Small Business Search. Criteria include “Government Certifications” such as “Economically Disadvantaged Women Owned Small Businesses” as well as “Ownership and Self-Certifications,” such as “Tribally Owned.”
References
Minority Business Development Agency (ca. 2024). 2021 all minority-owned firms [Fact sheet]. https://www.mbda.gov/sites/default/files/2024-10/2021-us-minority-owned-employer-firms.pdf
U.S. Census Bureau. (2024, August 8). Census Bureau releases demographic characteristics of nonemployer business owners [Press release]. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024/characteristics-nonemployer-statistics.html
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