The Missing Entrepreneurs 2023 arrives at a time of continued volatility and uncertainty in the global economy, characterised by immediate and pressing challenges such as trade disruptions and slow growth in many of the world’s largest economies. These complicate the ability to overcome challenges and leverage opportunities from longer-term pressures, notably climate and demographic change as well as the digital transition. Whether immediate or longer-term, entrepreneurs, as important sources of growth, jobs and innovation, have a central role to play in finding solutions to these challenges, but not all those with entrepreneurial aspirations have the opportunity to turn their ideas into businesses.

At the end of 2023, the EU labour market has largely recovered from the COVID-19 crisis. However, access to self-employment remains challenging for underrepresented groups in entrepreneurship such as youth, people with disabilities and migrants. Furthermore, much progress can still be achieved as regards entrepreneurship for women, seniors, and unemployed people.

Inclusive entrepreneurship policies seek to unlock entrepreneurial talent across the population, helping to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity of creating a successful and sustainable business, regardless of their gender, age, place of birth, work status or other personal characteristics. In turn, opening up entrepreneurship to more people can contribute to achieving more inclusive and sustainable growth. Because it is inherently people-centred, inclusive entrepreneurship policies can also create stronger labour market attachment and tackle social and financial exclusion.

The Missing Entrepreneurs 2023 report provides an overview of recent trends and policy developments in the field of inclusive entrepreneurship policy. These policies seek to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity of creating a successful and sustainable business, regardless of their gender, age, place of birth, work status or other personal characteristics. The 2023 edition is the seventh edition in the series of Missing Entrepreneurs reports. It is published every two years and each edition presents updated indicators on entrepreneurship activities by different population groups (e.g. women, immigrants, youth, seniors, the unemployed, people with disabilities), which are benchmarked across countries. The report also presents current knowledge on the barriers faced in business creation by these different groups and provides an updated overview of policy actions to address these obstacles. It provides concrete examples of policies and initiatives that show promising results and/or innovative approaches to inspire others.

The profile of entrepreneurs is becoming more diverse in the European Union (EU) and OECD. However, this shift has been slow overall, and there is a long way to go before the population of entrepreneurs fully reflects the diversity of the wider population.

This chapter presents evidence on recent trends in self-employment and entrepreneurship among women, immigrants, youth and seniors in the European Union (EU) and OECD. It shows that self‑employment has bounced back following the COVID-19 pandemic for many groups in the EU, notably women. However, there are still many millions of “missing” entrepreneurs that cost economies ideas, innovation and jobs. The chapter also provides a brief overview of how governments are using a range of policies and programmes to reduce gaps in entrepreneurship. New policy developments at national and local levels are highlighted, including new strategies to reduce gender gaps in entrepreneurship, the re-emergence of support for senior entrepreneurs in several countries and the introduction of entrepreneurship schemes for Ukrainian refugees. The chapter also outlines some policy priorities for future developments in inclusive entrepreneurship policy.