The contribution of migrants and ethnic minorities to entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom

Chapter 3 compares the entrepreneurial attitudes, activity and aspiration of a representative sample of over 38,000 individuals in the United Kingdom gathered using GEM protocols. White life-long residents tend to have less awareness of and less favourable attitudes to entrepreneurship than other ethnic/migrant categories. Those with Black ethnic backgrounds appear to have higher propensity to either intend or actively be trying to start new businesses, but this does not translate into significantly higher levels of actual business ownership. Both UK-born regional in-migrants and immigrants are more likely to be high-expectation early stage entrepreneurs than life-long residents. However, belonging to any of 15 different ethnic minorities rather than White British appeared to have no effect on propensity to be a high-expectation early-stage entrepreneur.