In Brief: Entrepreneurs... born, not made?

FINDINGS from a new report based on interviews with 1,800 businesses back up anecdotal evidence that birth order and family size help shape entrepreneurs. The results were part of a survey for the most recent Sensis Business Index. Entrepreneurs, it seems, are most likely to be the first-born in a family and are least likely to be only children, according to the study of 1,800 people. The Index showed that more than 40 per cent of small business operators were the eldest child in the family, while just under one third were middle children and one quarter were the youngest. Only children were the least represented, accounting for just 5 per cent of business operators “We can also see small business operators tend to come from larger families, having on average between two and three siblings,” researcher Christena Singh said. “The expression ‘the apple does not fall far from the tree’ does not seem to apply to entrepreneurship.” It appears growing up in a family that owns a business does not strongly influence one’s decision to start a business, with only four out of 10 business operators saying their parents had run a small business.