Are millennials less entrepreneurial? In the era of Facebook, Twitter, Snap and the slew of unicorns founded by (or attractive to) millennials, we were quite surprised when we came across this piece by the FT which suggests that in fact, millenials are less entrepreneurial than their counterparts from Generation X and older. Fewer than 4% of 30-year-olds in the US reported they were in full-time self-employment compared with 5.4% of Generation X and 6.7% of Baby Boomers (defined as those born between 1944 and 1962) at the same age, according to a 2014 study by the US Small Business Administration (pdf).

They also fail more often, apparently: That’s not to say that millennials don’t have the youthful independence of previous generations — entrepreneurs aged between 20 and 35 had on average already set up twice as many businesses as those over 50, according to a 2015 report from BNP Paribas. It’s just that they fail more. “The younger generation of founders is far less likely to be successful compared with their older peers: the peak age for a founder is 45 with those in their 20s least likely to create a high-growth firm,” according to a study by US Census Bureau (pdf). In the UK, official data reflects the number of failed businesses.

You can blame the global financial crisis: The FT suggests that art of the downturn in the number of startups run by millenials might be due to an attitude averse to risk that likely took hold during the global financial crisis. US Census Bureau statistics show that startup creation dropped sharply since 2008 and has yet to recover to pre-crisis levels. “Millennials do suffer from a lack of confidence,” said Ana Bakshi, who heads the new Oxford Foundry project, a hub program at Oxford university.

There’s hope in future generations: But there is a change in attitude that is being reflected in younger millennials: 15% of incoming students reported an interest in becoming entrepreneurs in October 2016; according to a study from Oxford university careers service. Almost a year later, the figure had risen to 19%. “There’s a marked increase — a significant difference between age groups,” says Robert Osborne of the Centre for Entrepreneurs, a think-tank in London. “Before people may have started companies in their late 20s but were not getting to scale until their late 30s. In the past 18 months we’ve had lots of young millennials — around 20 to 25,” said Emma-Jane Packe, managing director of the Supper Club, a networking group for scale-up businesses. That could be because younger entrepreneurs are scaling up their businesses quicker.