Why is America so much worse than the UK at encouraging women to be tech entrepreneurs?

The tech industry has the same woman problem all over the world: there are too few of them.
A new study shows that the U.S. can learn a lot from the way the U.K. encourages women — who are still a minority among tech startup leaders, but far more prevalent than they are in the U.S.

A new survey conducted by digital startup accelerator Wayra UK and British consulting firm astar-fanshawe shows that U.K. entrepreneurs are five times more likely to be women than American entrepreneurs. The survey, which was distributed to 222 early-stage startups, also says that women in the U.K. also occupied 29% of leadership roles within startups.
But don’t think of U.K. as a haven for female entrepreneurs just yet.
In fact, the survey results might speak more to failures of Silicon Valley than the success of the U.K., according to Russ Shaw, the founder of Tech London Advocates, an advocacy group that has a working group looking into the industry’s gender disparity.
“The comparison between U.K. and the U.S. does not necessarily show London as a shining example of diversity in tech. Rather it highlights the lack of diversity in the Silicon Valley mentality,” Shaw said.
And Silicon Valley — and the startup industry, in general — certainly has a problem. Diversity reports from the last year show companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are still overwhelmingly white and male.
So what is the Silicon Roundabout doing better than Silicon Valley?
“The startup culture in London is unlike any I’ve seen elsewhere, most notably in the U.S.,” Lora Schellenberg, the co-managing director of Girls in Tech London, an advocacy group that supports British women in the tech industry. “There is a much more supportive spirit among everyone, which is why I strongly believe more women are keen to be involved.”
Schellenberg attributed some of the success of women in the London startup industry to the U.K.’s publicly funded health care system, which allows women to start their own businesses without worrying about ponying up costs for coverage.
“Also, there is more support to women in the U.K. versus the U.S. for flexible time off for family,” Schellenberg said.
Though the U.K. is ahead of the pack, female entrepreneurs across the Atlantic still face many of the funding challenges as women in the U.S.
Male entrepreneurs across the Atlantic are almost two times more likely to get venture capital financing than women. Men are 59% more likely to secure angel investments, and women are 37% more likely to be self-funded than men.
None of the men report worked in the lifestyle industry, and none of the women worked in the finance or business sectors. And according to Shaw, females are still lacking in key positions.
“The proportion of female representation at senior levels within tech companies remains shockingly low. One in four tech companies have no women on their boards and 15% have no women at all on their senior management teams,” Shaw said. “The numbers are also low for women in coding and developer positions.”
Shaw and Schellenberg agree that tech companies need to continue to chip away at the issue if the U.K. numbers should come to represent real gains in fixing gender disparity in the tech industry.
Shaw said that Women in Tech working group has made a number of recommendations to the private sector to fix the problem, including “producing data points that raise awareness around the issue, securing the commitment of the C-suite team to improve diversity and gain mentorship from senior women for support and guidance.”
And people are trying to solve the problem, both in the U.S. and abroad. Intel announced earlier this month that it will invest $125 billion in startups run by women and underrepresented minorities. Apple CEO Tim Cook told Mashable his company wants to make strides to improve diversity in tech. And a number of smaller organizations — from Black Girls Code in the U.S. to Schellenberg’s Girls in Tech London — have been pushing women into the male-dominated industry for years.
“It’s a difficult issue, but I truly feel women’s organizations that help women gain confidence and become inspired by other amazing women help chip away at the problem,” Schellenberg said. “Slowly but surely.

courtesy mashable