This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.
People unhappy with where they live are more likely to set up their own businesses than those in happy areas.
New research analysed financial data from Company Check with the happiness ratings from Rightmove’s recent Happy at Home report.
More Entrepreneurs in Unhappy Places
The study found that the unhappiest parts of the country had higher levels of new business incorporation in 2014.
In the least happy place in the UK, Barking and Dagenham, 21,400 new firms were incorporated last year, the second highest of all the 130 towns and cities studied.
Eight of the top ten places for entrepreneurship were in the bottom half of the happiness index, while just one area out of the happiest 50, Bristol, was in the top ten for the amount of new businesses.
The happiest place, Harrogate, was rated at 76th for entrepreneurship.
Founder of Company Check, Alastair Campbell, says: “Entrepreneurship is an essential part of the UK’s economy, with well over 5m new businesses filing accounts with Companies House in 2014 alone.
“The correlation between happiness and entrepreneurship highlighted in this research cannot explain cause and effect, but it wouldn’t surprise me if entrepreneurship was, at least in part, a result of dissatisfaction.
“The data suggests that the less happy someone is, the more likely they are to set up their own business.
“I started my first company because I didn’t agree with how other people ran their businesses and wanted to do it my way. As business people, we shouldn’t be afraid to say that we’re unhappy with how things are and look to improve them.”1
1 http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/rightmoves-happy-places-are-the-worst-for-entrepreneurs/
