Report: U.S. entrepreneurs in good spirits
The entrepreneurial spirit in the U.S. is thriving, and women enjoy ample opportunity among developed countries, according to a joint report by Babson College in Wellesley and New York City’s Baruch College.
The findings are detailed in the colleges’ 15th annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) U.S. Report, which includes 2013 data on 25 developed countries.
According to GEM, the U.S. continues to lead the way in entrepreneurship, with nearly 13 percent of the population in the process of starting or running a new business. Americans reported upbeat attitudes about the entrepreneurial environment; 47 percent said there are good opportunities -- the highest level reported since the report began in 1999. And 56 percent of respondents said they believed they had the capability to launch a business, which the report called a “remarkably stable indicator,” given recent fluctuations in the U.S. economic environment.
Meanwhile, women enjoy relatively good prospects for launching a business in the U.S. The country enjoys the highest rate of female entrepreneurship among countries assessed in the report. And those who are already running a business and are looking to grow is on the rise: 36 percent said they want to grow by more than five employees in the next five years, up from 31 percent in 2012.
Those women also seem to enjoy a greater degree of happiness than those who don’t run a business, according to GEM, which reported that established female business owners ranked their well-being more than twice as high as non-business owners.
“Women entrepreneurs show a substantial boost in well-being as their businesses mature, demonstrating the personal return on investment that comes with venturing into entrepreneurship,” said Donna J. Kelley, associate professor of entrepreneurship at Babson and the report’s lead author. “…Clearly, entrepreneurship provides women a most satisfying career choice.”
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