Global Entrepreneurship Monitor : Scotland 2023-24 Report

Mwaura, Samuel and Sahasranamam, Sreevas and Tapinos, Efstathios and Hart, Mark and Prashar, Neha and Ri, Anastasia (2024) Global Entrepreneurship Monitor : Scotland 2023-24 Report. University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

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Abstract

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is an Annual Population Survey (APS) undertaken in a number of participant countries globally. The survey is identical in each country and asks respondents about their attitudes and perceptions related to entrepreneurship and whether they are involved in some form of entrepreneurial activity. In 2023, GEM undertook structured interviews with over 136, 000 adults across 46 countries. Within the UK, 10,234 adults aged 18 to 80 took part in the GEM Adult Population Survey in 2023 alongside around 120 experts who through the GEM National Expert Survey (NES) provided information about aspects of the country’s socio-economic characteristics that have a significant impact on national entrepreneurship. This report mainly focuses on Scotland, comprising 1,640 participants in the adult working-age bracket (18-64) from an overall sample of 2,060 adults (including those over 65) that took part in the APS, and 40 entrepreneurship experts in Scotland (including entrepreneurs and a range of other ecosystems partners). Headline results for Scotland indicate that Total Early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) rate returned a small increase from 8.8% in 2022 to 9.1% in 2023. However, overall, TEA rates in Scotland remain broadly similar in the last 3 years since COVID-19. The two major developments in 2023 are that Minority ethnic (Non-White) TEA reached a new high at 24.1% while female TEA also hit a significant new record level of 8.6% in 2023, from 7.2% in 2022. Momentously, further, female TEA in Scotland appears to have all but closed the gap with male TEA which has itself been steadily declining since 2021 from 11.4% to 10.5% in 2022, to 9.8% in 2023. Effectively, in 2023, the difference between male TEA and female TEA is not statistically significant, suggesting that statistical parity between male and female TEA was attained in Scotland in 2023 - a landmark moment of significant consequence for female entrepreneurship discourse and policy in this country. Nevertheless, important regional differences and other contextual issues remain key concerns in female entrepreneurship in Scotland. While Southern Scotland returns a Female TEA at 8% is higher than male TEA (6.5%), with the Highlands and Islands, West Central, and Eastern Scotland returning relative gender parity in TEA, male TEA in Northern Eastern Scotland at 18.6% was virtually double the female TEA of 9.6%. Further, it is worth highlighting that a panel of entrepreneurship experts judged the context for entrepreneurship in Scotland to be generally mediocre, with the level of support for women’s entrepreneurship worryingly evaluated as less than satisfactory, scoring under three out of ten. Understanding these and other issues related to entrepreneurial attitudes, perceptions and activity in the country is important for policy and practice as entrepreneurship has important implications for the economy and many societal dynamics. Below, this report summarises these and other highlights from the GEM APS and NES surveys undertaken in Scotland in 2023, with relevant interpretations and implications for policy further suggested.

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https://doi.org/10.17868/strath.00089977
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)