How much entrepreneurial activity is there in rural areas?

Research by Serdal Ozusaglam, Stephen Roper and Neha Prashar using the data from the UK Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM)  found there are higher levels in rural areas than in urban. 

Entrepreneurial activity – creating and developing a new business – provides the opportunity for new wealth creation in a community and creates the potential for new employment. In rural areas where alternative employment opportunities may be less accessible, local entrepreneurship may be particularly important. Rural entrepreneurship has received relatively little attention in the research literature – compared to urban entrepreneurship – and studies often suggest that ‘entrepreneurship in rural areas can hardly be competitive due to limited agglomeration effects, missing elements of entrepreneurial eco-systems and organisational thinness’ (Habersetzer et al. 2021, p. 936). In this paper levels of rural entrepreneurship activity in rural areas of the UK immediately prior to the Covid-19 pandemic are examined  comparing levels of rural entrepreneurship to urban areas of the UK outside London to provide an indication of the relative level of entrepreneurial activity.