Early-life exposure to hardship increased risk tolerance and entrepreneurship in adulthood with gender differences.

ABSTRACT: Many entrepreneurs credit their success to early hardship. Here, we exploit geographical differences in the intensity of China's Great Famine to investigate the effect of hardship during formative years on individual personality and engagement in business entrepreneurship. To exclude factors that might confound the relation between famine intensity and entrepreneurship, we model famine intensity by random weather shocks. We find robust evidence that individuals who experienced more hardship were subsequently more likely to become entrepreneurs (defined broadly as self-employed or business owners). Importantly, the increase in entrepreneurship was at least partly due to conditioning rather than selection. Regarding the behavioral mechanism, hardship was associated with greater risk toleranc

SUBMITTER: Yi J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9169631 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature