Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw entrepreneurs confront unparalleled challenges while they navigated their business through a health crisis and economic lockdowns. But these challenges were even greater for entrepreneurs in under-represented and disadvantaged groups such as women, immigrants, youth, seniors, people with disabilities and those starting a business from unemployment, especially as they were more likely to operate a business in the most heavily impacted sectors and often struggled to qualify from support measures. Not surprisingly, many closed their business due to the crisis.

Inclusive entrepreneurship refers to the range of policies helping certain groups to set up and grow their business. Women, young people and migrants face specific and often greater hurdles on the path to entrepreneurship, as do people with disabilities, seniors or the unemployed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating for entrepreneurs and business owners. This is even more true for entrepreneurs from under-represented and disadvantaged groups such as women, immigrants, youth and seniors. A growing body of international evidence shows that self-employed people and entrepreneurs from these groups were disproportionately impacted by the crisis, often due to the sector in which they operate, poor access to resources and the inaccessibility to the policy response. Although many governments implemented a range of measures to support the self-employed and micro businesses, these supports were not always accessible to those from under-represented and disadvantaged groups due to minimum revenue and hours worked thresholds, linkages between support and previous tax returns, poor communication and more.

The Missing Entrepreneurs 2021 report provides an overview of the scope of inclusive entrepreneurship policy, which seeks to give everyone 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 2021 edition is the sixth edition in the series of Missing Entrepreneurs reports and presents updated indicators on entrepreneurship activities, which are benchmarked across countries and population groups; addresses existing challenges; and, provides concrete policy examples and lessons learned - notably recent developments in inclusive entrepreneurship and the important role inclusive entrepreneurship policy has in the COVID-19 recovery. Two thematic policy chapters discuss current policy issues and present the range of policy actions currently used in EU and OECD countries.

Not everyone has an equal opportunity to transform their ideas into a business. There could be an additional 9 million people starting and managing new business in the European Union (EU) – and 35 million across OECD countries – if everyone was as active in business creation as core age men (30-49 years old). This would be 50% more people engaged in early-stage entrepreneurship in the EU and 40% more in OECD countries. About three-quarters of these “missing” entrepreneurs are women, half are over 50 years old and one-in-eight are under 30 years old.

Micro-businesses and the self-employed faced many challenges during from the COVID-19 pandemic, including reduced demand for their goods and services and a need to adjust business operations in response to temporary operating restrictions and social distancing measures. As a result, the majority faced a significant reduction in hours worked and income. However, evidence suggests that women, immigrant, youth and senior entrepreneurs faced even greater challenges because of their concentration in sectors that were the most heavily impacted and having less access to resources. Moreover, they often had greater difficulties utilising government emergency measures. This chapter presents evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the self-employed, including differences across population groups. It also discusses the role of inclusive entrepreneurship policies in addressing the economic crisis and how inclusive entrepreneurship policies should be strengthened in the future.