Survival of the fittest?

We all love the seemingly pointless surveys / statements / research we so often read about. The latest one says that women are more likely to survive the current downturn than men. Why? The sweeping generalisations given to back this up include the fact that women are good at planning but also adapting their plans, better at communicating, less driven by money and value relationships instead. I guess that saying we take a “pragmatic and open approach to business”, as Business Link puts it, is a good thing, but saying that all women are very good planners and not very driven by monetary success seems a bit far fetched.

Further research by Barclays says that the ladies are in fact less likely to survive because they give up earlier than men – 49% of the women owned firms that opened banks accounts in 2003 were still trading in 2007 compared to 57% of male run ones, (a whopping 8% difference…!)

So what have we learned from all this? Frankly, not a lot. And that in a period of economic difficulty, we’ve all pretty much got the same chance of making it through.