Alternative sources of data on the level of employment of Russian women in entrepreneurship

Development of the market economy and changes in the principles of social structuring of society lead to the fact that the concept of gender equality goes beyond the labor market and begins to spread to other spheres of public relations, for example, entrepreneurship. However, to obtain empirical data to understand the extent of participation of men and women in business, it is not sufficient to conduct surveys or censuses, because they do not specialize in such information and provide data only on forms of employment (for hire and not for hire). The article deals with the possibilities of using administrative sources of information (the Unified register of small and medium-sized businesses) and the SPARK information base to obtain gender statistics and assess gender equality on the example of women's entrepreneurship in Russia. The main advantage of these sources of information is the possibility of extracting data on the activities of Russian entrepreneurs, for which information is not provided by the statistical collections of Rosstat. Calculations of the author make it possible to establish existence in the Russian business of gender differentiation in en­trepreneurship, formation of employment niches assigned to each sex that allows us to speak about the specific features of the Russian business. Thus, women are concentrated in micro- and small businesses; they are mainly engaged in the socially important services-health care and education, other individual services; they are prone to less risky and less innovative spheres, such as trade and services; there are similarities between the structure of entrepreneurship, employment as employees and the professional structure of population.