The billion dollar conundrum: why there are so few self-made female billionaires

According to global wealth intelligence company Altrata, of the 3,323 billionaires in the world in 2024, only 13 per cent were women. Of those 431 women, three-quarters inherited their wealth, including three of the richest women in the world: Alice Walton (Walmart), Julia Koch (Koch Industries), and Françoise Bettencourt Meyers (L’Oreal). As per Altrata, only 5 per cent of male billionaires inherited their fortunes.

While this statistic is a damning indictment of the opportunities provided to women across all levels, it is not a judgement on women who have inherited their wealth. In fact, in The XX Factor (2013), British economist Alison Wolf writes that “more and more of the women who have inherited fortunes based on family companies are also actively involved in running them.” Furthermore, according to Altrata, female billionaires are four times more likely to be involved in philanthropic endeavours than their male counterparts.

However, with women increasingly obtaining educational degrees and cultural norms across most of the world rapidly shifting, one must still wonder why more women have not risen to the top on their merit. The answer is unsurprising. In every country and every industry, sexism — both internal and external — is prevalent.

The ‘glass cliff’

Women reached 50 per cent of college graduates in the United States by the early 1980s according to the National Council for Education. Since then, they have steadily progressed, earning an increasing share of degrees, securing more entry-level positions, and breaking into traditionally male-dominated fields. Yet, despite these advancements, the representation of women at the highest levels of corporate America has remained stagnant. Today, only 52 of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women.

Women are more qualified educationally than men in several countries, including the US, China, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Qatar. Across Latin America, 60 per cent of women go to college or university, compared to under 50 per cent of men. However, patriarchal structures make it harder for women in the workforce to rise.

In Women Elite Leaders Doing Respectable Business Femininity (2016), Newcastle University professor Sharon Marvin argues that the implicit ideal of a manager privileges masculine traits and behaviours, making women seem to be less suitable. Marvin adds that while women are expected to be kind, warm, and helpful, they have to embody masculine characteristics such as assertiveness and aggression to buck the trend.

Ischinsky also points out that women’s job performances are often evaluated worse compared to those of males in similar positions, especially when those evaluations are conducted by men. Women also have less access to powerful mentors and formal and informal networks. These factors all culminate in what scholars MK Ryan and SA Haslam call the ‘glass cliff’ hypothesis.

In their 2005 paper, the Glass Cliff, Ryan and Haslam state that women are often said to encounter a glass ceiling while men have the opportunity to board a glass escalator. What is often overlooked, they argue, is the glass cliff, in which women in high entrepreneurial positions are offered precarious positions with greater potential for failure.

Eight of the 10 richest men in the world made their money in tech. It is, by a country mile, the fastest growing industry in the world and the one with the most potential of accumulating vast fortunes. It is also the most patriarchal.

While women are increasingly becoming startup founders (especially in middle-income countries), according to LinkedIn data compiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF), they account for only 28.2 per cent of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) workforce. According to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, women receive less than 3 per cent of all venture capital investments.

This externalised sexism is prevalent across the board, excluding ‘feminine’ fields like teaching, social work, and nursing — none of which present overwhelming opportunities for monetary success. In STEM industries, where the financial gains are high, opportunities for women in leadership are limited. According to the WEF report, “the ‘drop to the top’ from entry-level to C-suite positions is more pronounced in STEM occupations than in non-STEM roles.”

Internal barriers

While much of the discrepancy between male and female billionaires can be explained by the prevalence of men in powerful positions, cultural norms, history, and familial structures have also contributed to internal sexism.

As Sandberg writes, “In addition to the external barriers erected by society, women are hindered by barriers that exist within ourselves. We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in.” American activist Peggy McIntosh, in Feeling Like a Fraud (1985), expands upon this sentiment, writing, “Feeling like a fraud indicates that we have, deplorably, internalised value systems that said most people were incompetent and illegitimate in the spheres of power and public life and authority.”

Women often set lower expectations for their achievements, shouldering the majority of housework and childcare while adjusting their career ambitions for partners and children who may not even exist yet. Compared to their male colleagues, fewer women pursue senior positions, largely due to the challenges of motherhood. One of the first decisions new parents face is who will be the primary caregiver, and historically, that role has fallen to mothers. Breastfeeding alone has made this both a logical and biological choice.

Despite frequent claims from male politicians and pundits that motherhood is the most important and demanding job, women who step away from the workforce face steep career setbacks. Many struggle to return, and those who do often see their earnings drop significantly.

Much of this is cultural, some semantic, and some internal. As Sandberg writes, “I have even heard a few men say that they are heading home to “babysit” for their children. I have never heard a woman refer to taking care of her own children as babysitting.”

Sandberg argues that breaking down internal barriers is essential for women to gain power. Some believe that women can only reach the top once institutional barriers are removed. This creates a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma. The chicken argument suggests that once women attain leadership roles, they can dismantle systemic obstacles by demanding necessary changes or implementing them as decision-makers. The egg perspective asserts that these barriers must first be removed to enable women to rise in the first place.

Sandberg believes both are valid and equally important. Instead of debating which comes first, she advocates fighting on both fronts — encouraging women to push past internal limitations while supporting efforts to eliminate structural obstacles.

The rise of female billionaires in China

For decades, China has been synonymous with rapid economic growth, a country that lifted millions out of poverty and built glittering skylines seemingly overnight. But beyond its steel and glass towers, China has quietly emerged as something else: the undisputed capital of self-made female billionaires.

In the past two decades, more women have risen to the top of the financial ladder in China than in any other country. Real estate mogul Wu Yajun, technology entrepreneur Zhou Qunfei, and SOHO China’s Zhang Xin have reshaped industries in a society that, at first glance, might seem inhospitable to female leadership.

So how did China come to dominate the ranks of female wealth creation? The answer lies in an unlikely confluence of socialist ideology, capitalist dynamism, and a cultural shift driven by the country’s one-child policy.

For much of the 20th century, Chinese women were largely confined to domestic roles, much like their counterparts elsewhere in the world. But that began to change under Mao Zedong, who famously declared in 1968 that “women hold up half the sky.” His policies pushed millions of women into the workforce, creating a new normal in which female employment was expected, not exceptional.

By the 1980s, as China transitioned from a command economy to a market-driven one, female labour-force participation soared to around 80 percent, far surpassing the levels in Western nations at the time according to World Bank data.  Many of today’s most successful Chinese businesswomen started their careers in the factories that powered China’s rise as the world’s manufacturing hub.

Zhou Qunfei, for instance, grew up in rural Hunan province and took a job in a watch factory as a teenager. She would later found Lens Technology, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of smartphone screens, and become, at one point, the world’s richest self-made woman.

But China’s rise as a powerhouse for female entrepreneurs is not just a story of hard work and grit. It is also about timing.

When China began privatising its economy in the 1990s, it created a rare moment of openness in a traditionally rigid society. Unlike in the West, where entrenched corporate hierarchies often act as barriers to female advancement, China’s newly formed businesses had no long-standing traditions of male dominance. “New companies don’t have old structures,” Zhang Xin, the CEO of SOHO China, explains in a 2016 interview with Forbes.

At the same time, education became more accessible to women. In 1999, the government dramatically expanded university enrolment. Today, women make up the majority of college graduates in China according to government data.

Additionally, American journalist Evan Osnos, in Age of Ambition (2014), observed that the same one-child policy that led to a dearth of prospective daughters-in-law also created a generation of girls who were groomed for success. Without sons to inherit their ambitions, parents poured everything into their daughters. The phenomenon was so widespread that one of China’s most popular parenting guides was titled Harvard Girl, not Harvard Boy.

Yet, for all the extraordinary success stories, China’s gender gap is far from closed. Between 2010 and 2024, China plummeted from 61st to 106th in the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report. While economic growth typically narrows disparities between men and women, China’s rapid privatisation had the opposite effect.

As state-owned enterprises downsized, women were disproportionately pushed out of stable jobs. However, at the highest level, Chinese women still outperform their global counterparts. “Hundreds of thousands of new Chinese companies have made this country the world’s most competitive business environment,” Edward Tse, Greater China chairman of consultancy Booz & Company, writes in his book, The China Strategy: Harnessing the Power of the World’s Fastest-Growing Economy (2010). As Xin observes, “China, the economy is young, businesses are young, and there is a lot of entrepreneurial spirit in the system. That really gives women a great opportunity to succeed.”

Diane Hendricks’s remarkable ascent from a rural Wisconsin dairy farm to a self-made female billionaire in the United States encapsulates the essence of the American Dream. Meanwhile, China has carved its path, emerging as the global leader in self-made female billionaires. Yet, despite these exceptions, women worldwide remain vastly underrepresented among self-made billionaires.

Systemic sexism, limited access to capital, and restrictive gender norms continue to erect barriers, making Hendricks’s triumph a rare feat. As her story inspires, it also poses a critical question: Will more nations cultivate the conditions for women to shatter the glass ceiling, or will the disparities at the pinnacle of wealth endure?

Further reading

Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg, Knopf, 2013

Women in the Global Super Rich, Emma Ischinsky, Taylor and Francis Online, 2023

The XX Factor, Alison Wolf, Skyhorse, 2013

Women Elite Leaders Doing Respectable Business Femininity, Sharon Marvin, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1998

The Glass Cliff, MK Ryan and SA Haslam, British Journal of Management, 2005

Feeling Like a Fraud , Peggy McIntosh, Wellesley Center for Women, 1985

Age of Ambition, Evan Osnos, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015

The China Strategy: Harnessing the Power of the World’s Fastest-Growing Economy, Edward Tse, Basic Books, 2010