Title: The sources of regional variation in Canadian self-employment

Authors: Ben Spigel

Addresses: Department of Geography and Program in Planning, University of Toronto, Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St. George Street, Room 5047, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G3, Canada

Abstract: The regional variation of entrepreneurship and self-employment within and across nations has been carefully studied over the past 20 years. A multitude of papers covering more than a dozen countries have examined what economic and social factors drive local entrepreneurship. This paper both adds to this literature by examining the sources of regional variation of self-employment in Canada as well as critiques it by discussing the challenge of applying findings from one country to others. Through a meta-analysis of 34 previous studies of regional entrepreneurial variation, several common factors are identified and then examined in a Canadian context. Using data from the 2006 Census of Canada, the paper uses OLS regression to test the role of economic, demographic, and social factors on non-agricultural self-employment in Canadian census metropolitan areas. Population growth, migration, unemployment, firm size and structure all play a significant role in rates of self-employment in Canada.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; self-employment; regional variation; geography; Canada; population growth; migration; unemployment; firm size; organisational structure.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2012.045684

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2012 Vol.15 No.3, pp.340 - 361

Published online: 14 Aug 2014 *

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