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Monday, April 17th, 2017

Entrepreneurial Ambition Wanes Among Nonwhite Students in US

Author:     Justin McCarthy and Justin Bibb
Source:     The Gallup Organization
Publication Date:     April 12, 2017
 Link: Entrepreneurial Ambition Wanes Among Nonwhite Students in US
Stephan:   We are getting so many signals of social unwellness, and yet we seem as a nation unable to elect men and women who think about wellness as a social priority, or who seem capable of thinking of the future at all. Nothing is going to change this but massive citizen action and high voter turnout of those who see wellbeing as important. Can we muster it in 2018. I see some promising signs but the answer is not clear to me at all.
Story Highlights

  • 42% plan to start a business, down from 54% in 2011
  • 12-point drop among nonwhites; little change among whites
  • Entrepreneurial ambition remains flat nationally

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Entrepreneurial ambition has receded among racial and ethnic minority students in grades five through 12 in the U.S., according to the latest findings from the Gallup-HOPE Index. Though a majority of nonwhite students (54%) said in 2011 that they intended to start their own business, this figure fell to a new low of 42% in 2016.

Graph 1

These results are based on telephone surveys conducted Sept. 12-Nov. 7, 2016, with a nationally representative sample of 1,006 U.S. students in grades five to 12. While yearly fluctuations among nonwhite students may reflect smaller sample sizes among this group, the drop in entrepreneurial ambition between 2011 and 2016 is significant.

Nonwhite students’ entrepreneurial ambition once outpaced white students’ to a significant degree, but this edge has nearly evaporated. The 12-percentage-point drop since 2011 in the proportion of nonwhite students saying they plan to start a business puts them on par with white students. While nonwhite […]

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