According to the 2017 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, up to 23.8% of Chileans are currently participating in entrepreneurial endeavors. It is estimated that the ratio of entrepreneurs of opportunity to entrepreneurs of need is around 2.3, placing Chile below Europe (3.4) and the US (5.2), but above the Latin American average.
El Mercurio reports that while entrepreneurs has a percentage of the population have gone down in Chile, the country as a whole has risen in the global ranks. Furthermore, entrepreneurship continues to become more desirable among the population, with 74% of adults considering entrepreneurship as a viable career option. Hernan Cheyre, president of the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association, attributes this shift to Chile’s strong governmental support of entrepreneurship.
The 2017 study also included a new statistic that measures the “entrepreneurial spirit” in adults using three measures: capacity to identify opportunities, self-motivation, and entrepreneurial network. In this measure, Chile comes in 10th, tying with countries like Israel and the Netherlands.
While Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE tended to dominate the charts, Latin American countries, including Peru, Colombia, Chile, and Ecuador all ranked highly as well.
Read the original article in El Mercurio or find out more in the 2017 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor.