Wal-Mart, the National Women’s Business Council, and the Center for Women’s Business Research just released a study of U.S. women business owners. The study was created to get a handle on women’s economic impact. And (wo)man, is there ever an impact! According to the study, U.S. women-owned businesses have an economic impact of nearly $3 trillion and employ about 23 million people (that’s 16% of all U.S. jobs).

In normal times numbers like these would inspire a collective pat on the back for womanhood. But these aren’t normal times. In Sunday’s New York Times, Lisa Belkin, tells it like it is: Women are doing better because men are doing worse. Seventy-eight percent of jobs that were lost during this recession were lost by men!

Women are doing well because they’ll settle for less. (They’ve always settled for less.) Right now, less is what employers want. Women, for all their triumphs, still make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. They’re willing to work cheaper. They tend to work in fields like health and education — lower paying, but not as hard hit as finance and construction in this recession.

So, congrats to women for their impact on business. And think about this: Maybe our willingness to take less and do more is the right recipe for changing the culture of the workplace.