2021, Vol. 7, No. 4 10.15678/IER.2021.0704.02 Entrepreneurial activity in Turkey: A statistical overview for the years of 2006-2020 Mustafa Toycan, Burak Erkut A B S T R A C T Objective: The objective of the article is to understand the development of Turkish entrepreneurial activity over the last 15 years. Research Design & Methods: The research design employed in this article is a quantitative one, mainly by utilizing the data available from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and Eurostat to map the structure and the development of Turkish entrepreneurial activity between 2006 and 2020. With respect to gender, age and education status of Turkish self-employed, the article also employs a chi-square test of association. Findings: The main empirical results of this article identify that whereas the overall share of self-employed among the active Turkish population dropped from 24% in 2006 to 17% in 2020, this is not only above the EU-27 average, but also largely due to a drop in the share of own account workers. The article highlights that over the duration of 15 years, the share of job creators among the active Turkish population remained stable despite all the negative events occurred in Turkey. The article also identifies a gender imbalance in terms of self-employ- ment, and a significant difference between educational background of own account workers and job creators. Implications & Recommendations: Understanding the patterns of development of Turkish entrepreneurial eco- nomic activity in the last 15 years can serve as a point of departure for both entrepreneurship researchers and policymakers. For entrepreneurship researchers, the case not only allows for a cross-national comparison, but also delivers empirical evidence from a transition country. For policymakers, fluctuations in the number of own account workers deserve more attention whereas stability of job creators can be further analysed for understanding what makes this group particularly stable despite all the negative events that occurred over the last decade. Contribution & Value Added: The study contributes to the literature by offering a current overview of Turkish entrepreneurial activity in the last 15 years. Since the literature on Turkish entrepreneurship is primarily domi- nated by topics such as students’ entrepreneurial intentions, women entrepreneurship or migrant entrepreneur- ship, the study offers empirical evidence to see the bigger picture of Turkish entrepreneurial economic activity. Article type: research article Keywords: Entrepreneurial activity; self-employment; Turkey JEL codes: L26, R23 Received: 12 August 2021 Revised: 14 October 2021 Accepted: 8 November 2021 Suggested citation: Toycan, M., & Erkut, B. (2021). Entrepreneurial activity in Turkey: A statistical overview for the years of 2006- 2020. International Entrepreneurship Review, 7(4), 23-33. https://doi.org/10.15678/IER.2021.0704.02 INTRODUCTION Entrepreneurship plays a key role in a country’s economic development. Entrepreneurship, described as “the actions of a risk taker, a creative venturer into a new business or the one who revives an existing business” (Herbert & Link, 1989) (p. 39), is the connecting link between new idea generation and mar- ket shaping, or matching the needs of people with technology or artefacts (Erkut, 2016). Entrepreneur- ial activity can be described as a subjective journey towards the competition as a discovery process in the words of Friedrich August von Hayek (Hayek, 2002). International Entrepreneurship Review RI E 24 | Mustafa Toycan, Burak Erkut Literature on economics and business mainly identifies entrepreneurship within the domain of evolu- tionary economics (Erkut, 2016). Evolutionary economics, as put forward by Ulrich Witt, is like a patch- work (Witt, 2014)where different traditions or directions of research observed the emergence and the dissemination of knowledge from different angles (Buenstorf, 2007). In the evolutionary economic lit- erature, Witt distinguishes between Neo-Schumpeterians, Schumpeter himself, universal Darwinists and representatives of naturalistic approaches (Witt, 2008) where entrepreneurship is mainly elabo- rated within the domain of Neo-Schumpeterians. Accordingly, entrepreneurial economic activities or an entrepreneurial orientation (Benazzouz, 2019)shapes the economic evolution by means of introducing new goods and services and thereby shaping new markets, or market segments, or bringing fresh wind into existing ones (Erkut, 2020). Because of this central role dedicated to entrepreneurship, it is important to analyse the entrepre- neurial economic activities of individuals in a systematic way, especially regarding their role in eco- nomic evolution and growth. The novelty of this study is to explore the entrepreneurial economic activities in Turkey from 2006 until 2020 by using statistics available via Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and Eurostat. Previous studies mainly dominated Turkish entrepreneurship research by means of focusing on students’ entre- preneurial intentions and entrepreneurial activities of specific groups in Turkey (to be more precise, women and migrants from Syria). In comparison to these studies, the novelty of the article is providing a general overview of data on current Turkish entrepreneurial activity, also by investigating current Turkish self-employed by means of their gender, age, and education. The objective of the article is therefore to understand the development of the entrepreneurial economic activity in Turkey from 2006 until 2020 by focusing on the patterns of Turkish entrepreneurs’ cohorts and characteristics from the Labour Force Survey data. By doing so, the article aims to answer the following research questions: What is the current state of entrepreneurial economic activity in Turkey? Who are the self-employed Turkish people? The topic is important for a number of reasons: On the one hand, with a growing population of around 83.6 million people (Turkish Statistical Institute, 2021a), Turkey is one of the largest countries connecting Europe and Asia, and with a dynamic economy, it is considered to be one of the next eleven countries expected to be the biggest economies in the world. Nevertheless, it is a country in transition, one that is considered stable and sustaining its competitiveness largely due to information and com- munication technologies adoption, infrastructure measures and its dynamic labour market in addition to an improved human capital base (Schwab, 2019).On the other hand, the case of Turkey as a dynamic nation of transition gives a significant potential to understand the entrepreneurship-development nexus that goes beyond the cases of established Western economies. Also from a cross-national com- parison perspective, one can identify entrepreneurial economic activities in Turkey as an important case of comparison due to the country’s significant economic position and potential. In what follows, the author will first discuss previous literature on entrepreneurship and self-em- ployment, especially regarding the Turkish context. Next, the author will present the research meth- odology. The results will be presented and discussed, which is followed by a conclusion and perspec- tives for further research. LITERATURE REVIEW Recent literature on entrepreneurship explicitly analysed the role of environmental conditions on en- trepreneurial economic activity. To be more specific, literature emphasized that differences in envi- ronmental conditions that shape entrepreneurial ecosystems can differ, and based on these differ- ences, one can notice different paths of evolution towards an entrepreneurially driven economic struc- ture (Guerrero et al., 2020). Recent literature also highlights that entrepreneurship not only has a sig- nificant impact on economic development, but also the type of it has different consequences for dif- ferent stages of competitive advantage. To be more specific, (Stoica et al., 2020) identify that oppor- tunity-driven entrepreneurship has a bigger impact on economic development of transition countries, Entrepreneurial activity in Turkey: A statistical overview for the years of 2006-2020 | 25 whereas necessity-driven entrepreneurship has a bigger impact on economic development of innova- tion-driven countries. Furthermore, recent empirical evidence suggests that the role of human capital in the transition towards a resilient, sustainable, entrepreneurially-driven economy gained importance in the last decade (Sharma, Shah, et al., 2021; Sharma, Thomas, et al., 2021; Sharma, Tiwari, Jain, et al., 2021; Sharma, Tiwari, Talan, et al., 2021). These recent contributions imply that entrepreneurship is in fact very contextual, not only in terms of the discovery of subjective knowledge as a point of departure for market shaping activities (Erkut, 2016) or a resilience-oriented organisational transformation (Zutshi et al., 2021), but also in terms of the conditions of entrepreneurial economic activity across different nations. In order to understand different national contexts in terms of their entrepreneurial conditions and current state, more empirical work is needed to motivate entrepreneurship policies that can stimulate entrepreneurial activity at the national level (Solomon et al., 2021). When focusing on capturing the trends and current state of national eco- nomic activity, with a particular emphasis to entrepreneurship, it is essential to focus on the dynamics of the labour market for understanding different forms of self-employment, and distinguish between own- account workers and job creators to understand the latter’s evolution, as job creators are the ones which contribute more to employment and economic development (Baluku et al., 2021). Since entrepreneurship-economic development nexus primarily relies on empirical evidence from developed nations (Stoica et al., 2020), (Davidsson, 2015) suggests to gather empirical evidence from countries that have not been the subject of entrepreneurship research, which is followed by (Dvouletý, 2019) with the case of Czech Republic. Another such case is Turkey. Previous studies highlighted different aspects of Turkish entrepreneurship, although -to the knowledge of the authors- there is no systematic review of literature to understand tendencies and biases in current research on this topic. Some of the recent literature reviews can be identified, even though these are only partially covering the current state of entrepreneurship research in Turkey. A recent overview of postgraduate theses written in Turkey high- lights that postgraduate theses of education faculties are biased towards understanding the entrepre- neurial intentions of teachers and students in Turkey (Akyar & Sarıkaya, 2020). Similarly, (Gözüm, 2019) focused on scientific articles about entrepreneurship published in national scientific journals in Turkey. The author identified that the topic of entrepreneurial tendencies is the leading topic among Turkish researchers publishing in national scientific journals. A similar tendency can be seen in articles available via Web of Science in the last two years, as many scholars are engaging in measuring entrepreneurial tendencies(Gürel et al., 2021; Özcan et al., 2021; Yalçıntaş et al., 2021), understanding the impact of Syrian refugee entrepreneurs on Turkish economy (Baktır & Watson, 2021; Chang, 2021; Kachkar, 2019) and how women entrepreneurs are changing the entrepreneurship scene in Turkey (Ármane et al., 2021; Bozoğlu Batı & Armutlulu, 2020; Erdoğan, 2020; Kurteğe Sefer, 2020). (Öner & Kunday, 2016) notice that entrepreneurship support started to increase and become more visible since 2006. According to the authors, the contextual framework of entrepreneurship, consisting of government policies, socioeconomic conditions, financial support, and skills (both entrepreneurial and business-related) seem to favour the growth of an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Turkey. The approach by (Birelma, 2019) explores working-class entrepreneurialism in Turkey. The author identifies that among manual workers, wage work is considered as working for a stranger. The author interprets this as a sign of non-identification with wage work, especially when self-employment is a serious option and even a desire to be realized. (Oğuztimur & Seçkin, 2018) evaluate the provinces of Turkey regarding their entrepreneurial po- tential regarding economic factors, human capital, physical infrastructure, and innovativeness. The au- thors identify an unbalanced regional potential regarding the development of entrepreneurial eco- nomic activity, where developed provinces show a higher entrepreneurial capacity than developing ones. The authors notice that the unbalanced regional development perspective is almost identically reflected in the unbalanced entrepreneurial potential of Turkey. Even though these articles provide valuable insights into specific fields of entrepreneurship, an over- view of current entrepreneurial activity and self-employment in Turkish economy is missing in the current literature. This is the research gap identified by the authors, as many scholars are focusing on who has the potential to become an entrepreneur (entrepreneurial tendencies), what specific and disadvantaged 26 | Mustafa Toycan, Burak Erkut groups of entrepreneurs are currently doing in Turkey (women and refugees), but little has been done to understand the current entrepreneurial economic activities in Turkey from national statistics. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The approach follows the empirical strategy set by (Dvouletý, 2019) to use data from representative population surveys, to be more specific, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and the Labour Force Survey by operationalising the level of entrepreneurial activity by means of focusing on self -em- ployment as a share of the economically active population between 15 and 64 years of the corre- sponding country. Hence, the research approach is a quantitative de sign focusing on the level of entrepreneurial activity available in statistics. This research will give an overview of recent statisti- cal evidence covering the period of 2006-2020. The statistical base of the quantitative design is taken from both Labour Force Statistics and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Variables used for calculations are, first, the active total population, the number of self-employed persons, and the breakdown of the number of self-employed persons by means of gender, age, and education. These are taken from Eurostat(Eurostat, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c). In addition, the level of entrepreneurial activity is taken from the Global Entrepreneurship Moni- tor(Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2021a). With the rate of self-employment, the authors indicate the share of self-employed persons among the active population between 15 and 64 years. With the rate of job creators, the authors indicate the share of self-employed with further employees among the active population between 15 and 64 years. With the rate of own account workers, the authors indicate the share of self-employed without any further employees among the active population between 15 and 64 years. For calculating the association between the type of self-employment and gender, age, and educa- tion level respectively, the chi-square test of association will be utilized with the help of the statistical software package SPSS. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION According to the Turkish Statistical Institute(Turkish Statistical Institute, 2020), small and medium enterprises consisted of 99.8% of all enterprises in Turkey, accounting for 72.4% of employment, 50.4% of revenue and 44% of value added in 2019. In addition, the same source reveals that Turkish small and medium enterprises realized 36.6% of overall Turkish exports and contributed to research and development spending of Turkish firms by 31%. These recent statistics suggest that the Turkish economy is still very dependent on small and medium enterprises. This dependence on small and medium enterprises is historically rooted in the national economic dynamics by means of organizing small and medium entrepreneurs in entrepreneurial organizations called Ahi Institution(Aktürk, 2021). As (Aktürk, 2021) mentions, a nation’s economic history is primarily its history of entrepre- neurship, and historically, the Turkish economy developed with the efforts of small and medium enterprises, organized by means of Ahi Institutions. Based on the detailed analysis of (Aktürk, 2021), one can notice the historical trend of an economy characterized by a dominating small and medium enterprise sector. With respect to the current situa- tion of Turkish economy, one can only identify limited information about the long-term development of entrepreneurial economic activities in Turkey. For instance, separate entrepreneurship statistics have been introduced by the Turkish Statistical Institute only recently. Starting with the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor results, the most recent data available from Turkey is for the year 2018(Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2021b). In 2018, the Total Entrepre- neurial Activity (TEA) index for Turkey was 14.2% in 2018, a very sharp increase in comparison to 2006, in which the TEA index for Turkey was 6.1%. Similarly, the results revealed that 8.7% of the adult Turkish population was found out to be the owner-managers of new businesses in 2018 – which was a slight decrease in comparison to 2006, in which this rate was 11.4%. However, regarding the established business ownership results, one also notices a fluctuation over the years. In addition, Entrepreneurial activity in Turkey: A statistical overview for the years of 2006-2020 | 27 perceived opportunities for entrepreneurship increased from 33.9% in 2006 to 44.3% in 2018. Even though these numbers suggest an overall increasing trend, more recent data from the Global Entre- preneurship Monitor on Turkey is not available. Hence, in what follows, the focus of the author would be on the Labour Force Survey, made avail- able by Eurostat(Eurostat, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c), to understand the long-term development of entre- preneurial activity in Turkey. By focusing on the economically active Turkish population between 15 and 64 years of age, and self-employment engagement (both variables in 1000), the author calculated time series of self-employment rates (in %) in Turkey over the period of 2006-2020. By following the period starting from 2006, one can identify how entrepreneurial economic activity in Turkey evolved under the rule of the Justice and Development Party, which won its first election in 2002 and focused on restructuring the disastrous economy in the first four years of its governmental activity. Similar to the research strategy set by (Dvouletý, 2019), the author aims to distinguish between entrepreneurs with and without employees, i.e. job creators and own account workers. According to (Dvouletý, 2019) (p. 4) distinguishing between these two are important “especially from the perspective of policy mak- ers, as job creators contribute mainly to economic growth”. Figure 1 depicts the results of the calculations of the previously explained rates; (1) the rate of self- employed, (2) the rate of job creators, and (3) the rate of own account workers. Figure 1. Entrepreneurial Activity in Turkey between 2006 and 2020 (entrepreneurial activity as a % of Turkish population aged 15-64) Source: own elaboration based on Eurostat(Eurostat, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c) data. From Figure 1, one can identify that the rate of self-employed was 24% in 2006, and it dropped to 17% in 2020. Nevertheless, this is a stable and gradual drop, as the rate is nearly constant around 17- 18% since 2015. This rate is above the EU-27 average of 12,4% in 2020. In addition, we can identify that the entrepreneurial economic activity is dominated by own ac- count workers. These were 19% of the active Turkish population in 2006, and maintained their dom- inance until 2020, corresponding to 13% of the active Turkish population. Own account workers are also the ones whose numbers are fluctuating more than those of the job creators. However, their representation in the active Turkish population is above the EU-27 average of 8,7% in 2020.In com- parison to own account workers, the rate of job creators did not change much over the years. Whereas it was around 5% from 2006 to 2013, it slightly dropped to 4% in 2014 and remained there since then. This indicates that there is a small but stable group of job creating entrepreneurs despite all the negative events occurred since 2006 – the global financial crisis in 2008/2009, the unsuccess- ful coup attempt by the Gülenist terror group (FETÖ) in 2016 and the global pandemics in 2019/2020 did not change the stable position of this group much. In comparison, the EU-27 average was 3,7% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Rate of self-employment Rate of job creators Rate of own account workers 28 | Mustafa Toycan, Burak Erkut in 2020, which indicates that Turkey’s rate of job creating entrepreneurs is above the EU-27 average despite all the negative incidents that occurred in the last decade. In what follows, a demographic exploration of the data regarding gender, age, and education will be presented using data available via Eurostat (Eurostat, 2021c, 2021a, 2021b). Even though restricting the economic activity of self-employed to properties such as gender, age, and education does not mean that these are the only relevant properties of entrepreneurs, these are nevertheless significant criteria when it comes to understanding the cohorts of Turkish entrepreneurs. The empirical strategy set by (Dvouletý, 2019) also focuses on understanding entrepreneurs by means of these three properties, but for the case of Turkey, the choice of these three properties can be justified by a number of reasons: Regarding gender, it has already been emphasized in the literature review that the number of scientific publications on the topic of women entrepreneurship is keeping on growing (Ármane et al., 2021; Bozoğlu Batı & Armutlulu, 2020; Erdoğan, 2020; Kurteğe Sefer, 2020), hence, it is worth analysing how gender and type of self-employment are associated. Regarding age group, a recent statistical analysis by the Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkish Statistical Institute, 2021b) highlights that Turkey has the youngest population in Europe, with the age group 15-24 accounting for 15,4%of the Turkish population. As already mentioned in the literature review, a growing number of scholars are focusing on the entrepreneurial tendencies of students with the aim of contri buting to the agenda on increasing the number of young entrepreneurs tendencies (Gürel et al., 2021; Özcan et al., 2021; Yalçıntaş et al., 2021), hence, utilizing the potential of the youngest population in Europe. Therefore, it would be of utmost importance to understand how Turkish youth is contributing to the entrepreneurial economic activities of the nation, implying a questioning of the association between age and type of self-employment. On the other hand, previous literature also emphasized the signif- icant role of basic education on entrepreneurial economic activities in Turkey (Çetindamar et al., 2012). Together with the observations of (Schwab, 2019) in the Global Competitiveness Report 2019, stating the importance of human capital development in understanding how Turkey is keeping its competitive position in the global economy, this result indicates that education and type of self - employment should also be analysed for detecting a possible association. Tables 1, 2, and 3 show the results of the chi-square tests of association as well as Cramer’s V for the average values of the period 2006-2020 for Turkey. In all three cases, data available from Eurostat (Eurostat, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c) has been utilized with the help of the statistical software package SPSS. Table 1 shows us that there are roughly 5,6 times more self-employed males in comparison to females, which partially explains why there is a growing interest in academic scholars to concentrate on women entrepreneurship in Turkey. In case of job creators, 23,80% of males employ at least one further person, whereas only 11,77% of females employ at least one further person, indicating a further imbalance. Table 2 shows us that those aged between 25 and 49 are the leading group among self-employed, with a share of 65,37%. They are followed by those aged between 50 and 64, with a share of 31,54%. In comparison to these groups, the youngest group of Turkish people aged between 15 and 24 consti- tute only 3,09% of total self-employed persons among the active Turkish population. Among the job creators, the lion’s share is of those aged between 25 and 49 with 75,67%, whereas only 2,45% of those aged between 15 and 24 are employing at least one further person. Table 3 shows us that a vast majority of self-employed persons in Turkey has primary education or less (73,78%). Half of the job creators belong to this group, whereas the other half is almost equally split between those who has upper secondary or post-secondary education and those who has tertiary education. In case of solo self-employed persons, this picture changes with those having primary edu- cation or less dominating the scene with 80,46%. The results of this study indicate that there are imbalances in terms of gender, age, and education in case of self-employment. Self-employed Turkish people are mainly males, aged between 25-49, and have primary education or less. Own account workers largely dominate the scene, but their numbers are fluctuating more than the stable, but the small group of job creators. Entrepreneurial activity in Turkey: A statistical overview for the years of 2006-2020 | 29 Table 1. Chi-square association test for gender and type of self-employment (age range 15-64, in 1000, per- centages given in parentheses) Gender / Type of Self-Employment Solo Self-Employed Job Creators Total Self Employed Females 707.03(88,23%) 94.3(11,77%) 801.33 (100%) Males 3459.2(76,20%) 1080.3 (23,80%) 4539.5 (100%) Total Self-Employed 4166.23 (78%) 1174.6 (22%) 5340.83 (100%) Test of Association, Chi-Square=57,720, p-value=0,000, Cramer’s V=0,104 Source: own calculations in SPSS. Table 2. Chi-square association test for age and type of employment (age range 15-64, in 1000, percentages given in parentheses) Age category / Type of Self-Employment Solo Self-Employed Job Creators Total Self Employed 15-24 136.31 (3,272%) 28.73 (2,45%) 165.04 (3,09%) 25-49 2602.28 (62,45%) 888.85 (75,67%) 3491.13 (65,37%) 50-64 1427.67 (34,278%) 257.02 (21,88%) 1684.69 (31,54%) Total Self-Employed 4166.26 (100%) 1174.6 (100%) 5340.86 (100%) Test of Association, Chi-Square=71,025, p-value=0,000, Cramer’s V=0,115 Source: own calculations in SPSS. Table 3. Chi-square association test for education and type of self-employment (age range 15-64, in 1000, percentages given in parentheses) Level of Education / Type of Self-Employment Solo Self-Employed Job Creators Total Self Employed Less than Primary and primary (ISCED 2011 0-2) 3352.38 (80,46%) 587.94 (50,05%) 3940.32 (73,78%) Upper Secondary and post-secondary 583.33 (14%) 308.43 (26,26%) 891.76 (16,70%) non-tertiary (ISCED 2011 3-4) 230.55 (5,54%) 278.31 (23,69%) 508.86 (9,52%) Tertiary (ISCED 2011 5-8) 4166.26 (100%) 1174.68 (100%) 5340.94 (100%) Test of Association, Chi-Square=512,793, p-value=0,000, Cramer’s V=0,310 Source: own calculations in SPSS. CONCLUSIONS By conducting this study, the authors aimed to address two research gaps present in the literature. From a national perspective, a big number of studies elaborating entrepreneurship in Turkey restricted them- selves to entrepreneurial intentions of students, women entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial activities captured only by GEM data. This indicated that previous contributions were biased towards certain top- ics, but so far little has been done to capture real entrepreneurial economic activities in Turkey, especially in the sense of national statistics. Therefore, the article contributes to the ongoing debate around Turkish entrepreneurship by providing an up-to-date statistical overview of current entrepreneurial activities and self-employment, highlighting that this kind of overview is still missing for the Turkish case. From the international perspective, the article contributes to the empirical agenda of capturing na- tional levels of self-employment and entrepreneurship, allowing for a cross-national comparison. By com- bining different data sources, the study goes beyond the mere notion of capturing entrepreneurial inten- tions to allow for an overview of understanding what is currently happening in terms of entrepreneurial activity. The study, based on the empirical strategy set by (Dvouletý, 2019), calls for further contributions from different national perspectives to allow for a cross-national comparison of levels of entrepreneurial activity. In addition, the study follows the distinction made in (Dvouletý & Orel, 2020) regarding self-em- ployed individuals with and without further employees to follow their development path separately. The results indicated that even though the level of entrepreneurial activity dropped from 24% in 2006 to 17% in 2020, this was still above the EU-27 average and largely due to a decline in the number of own account workers. On the other hand, job creators – self-employed persons with at least one further em- ployee – remained to be in a stable 4%-5% level throughout the period of observation. The stability of this group is more important for economic development than own account workers due to their impact 30 | Mustafa Toycan, Burak Erkut on creating additional employment. The results also revealed a gender imbalance, and different struc- tures of age and education composition in case of own account workers and job creators. The results imply that despite the negative events occurred in Turkey in the recent past, the group of job creators remained to be stable over the last 15 years, whereas fluctuations were mainly seen among own account workers. For policymaking purposes, the authors state that both phenomena need to be elaborated in detail, since the stability of job creators can be further enhanced to increase their number and therefore increase the employment rate, whereas any measures to lessen the fluc- tuations among own account workers can also work in favour of the economic situation. To increase the number of women entrepreneurs, a lot has been done in Turkey in the last 18 years. Nevertheless, a lot is still there to achieve. One possible strategy would be to have a close look at the job creator women to understand their aspirations, behaviour, and survival strategies, since improving institu- tional conditions only makes one part of the big picture, and regarding the role of women in the soci- ety, more measures should be taken to ensure a work-life balance and a balance between family and business for encouraging more women to make a career as an entrepreneur. Finally, the study also calls for policymaking to increase the number of self-employed among those between 15 and 24. Tur- key, having the youngest population in Europe, has a big potential for youth entrepreneurship, and more efforts can be done to achieve a higher rate of self-employed within this age group. Like any other scientific study, this article is not free of limitations. On the one hand, the study restricted itself to the data available from GEM and LSF and highlighted only national levels of entre- preneurship and self-employment. Future research can give more emphasis to regional imbalances in terms of entrepreneurial activity in Turkey. From previous research, it is known that developed prov- inces in Turkey have better conditions for entrepreneurial activity than developing ones. By focusing on these regional imbalances, further studies can elaborate what can be done for the catch-up process of developing provinces in terms of creating the conditions for entrepreneurial activity. On the other hand, in terms of the characteristics of self-employed, the study only focused on gender, age group and education level, whereas previous research highlights further characteristics that can as well be relevant for policy purposes. Therefore, further research can elaborate other characteristics of self- employed to shed light to current entrepreneurial economic activity. REFERENCES Aktürk, O. (2021). Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyete Ahilik, Küçük Esnaf ve Girişimcilik Kültürü. In H. Y. Taş, M. Küçükoğlu, & M. Demirdöğmez (Eds.), Girişimcilik ve KOBİ Araştırmaları (pp. 29-55). Akyar, D., & Sarıkaya, R. (2020). Content Analysis of Graduate Theses on the Concept of Entrepreneurship in The Field of Education in Turkey. Gazi Üniversitesi Gazi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, 40(3), 979-1018. Ármane, S., Gärtig, S. İ., Gärtig, R., Tegtmeier, S., & Brem, A. (2021). STEM educated women entrepreneurs in Denmark, Latvia and Turkey: a context-based explorative study. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 13(2), 186. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJEV.2021.114409 Baktır, Z., & Watson, F. (2021). Trust-Driven Entrepreneurship for Community Well-Being of Refugees and Their Local Hosts. Journal of Macromarketing, 41(2), 251-266. https://doi.org/10.1177/0276146720935157 Baluku, M. M., Onderi, P., & Otto, K. (2021). Predicting self-employment intentions and entry in Germany and East Africa: an investigation of the impact of mentoring, entrepreneurial attitudes, and psychological capital. Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 33(3), 289-322. https://doi.org/10.1080/08276331.2019.1666337 Benazzouz, N. M. (2019). Entrepreneurial orientation and innovation intensity: A synthetic literature review. International Entrepreneurship Review, 5(2), 23-36. https://doi.org/10.15678/IER.2019.0502.02 Birelma, A. (2019). Working-class entrepreneurialism: Perceptions, aspirations, and experiences of petty entrepreneurship among male manual workers in Turkey. New Perspectives on Turkey, 61, 45-70. https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2019.18 Bozoğlu Batı, G., & Armutlulu, İ. H. (2020). Work and family conflict analysis of female entrepreneurs in Turkey and classification with rough set theory. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 7(1), 15. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0498-0 Entrepreneurial activity in Turkey: A statistical overview for the years of 2006-2020 | 31 Buenstorf, G. (2007). Creation and Pursuit of Entrepreneurial Opportunities: An Evolutionary Economics Perspective. Small Business Economics, 28(4), 323-337. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-006-9039-5 Çetindamar, D., Gupta, V. K., Karadeniz, E. E., & Eğrican, N. (2012). What the numbers tell: The impact of human, family and financial capital on women and men’s entry into entrepreneurship in Turkey. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 24(1-2), 29-51. https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2012.637348 Chang, C. (2021). The economically rich refugees: A case study of the business operations of Istanbul-based Syrian refugee businesspeople. International Migration, imig.12886. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12886 Davidsson, P. (2015). Data replication and extension: A commentary. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 3, 12-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbvi.2015.02.001 Dvouletý, O. (2019). Development of Entrepreneurial Activity in the Czech Republic over the Years 2005–2017. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 5(3), 38. https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc5030038 Dvouletý, O., & Orel, M. (2020). Individual determinants of entrepreneurship in Visegrád countries: Reflection on GEM data from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review, 8(4), 123-137. https://doi.org/10.15678/EBER.2020.080407 Erdoğan, Z. (2020). Eşikler ve Değerler Bağlamında Kırsalda Kadın Örgütlenmeleri: Bursa Üreten Kadın Dernekleri Federasyonu Örneği. Journal of Planning. https://doi.org/10.14744/planlama.2020.46794 Erkut, B. (2016). Product Innovation and Market Shaping: Bridging the Gap with Cognitive Evolutionary Economics. Indraprastha Journal of Management, 4(2), 3-24. Erkut, B. (2020). Hayek on Product Innovation and Market Shaping: Opening the Black Box. Liberal Düşünce Dergisi, 25(100), 169-189. https://doi.org/10.36484/liberal.757980 Eurostat. (2021a). Active Population by Sex, Age and Citizenship (1 000). http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=lfsa_agan&lang=en Eurostat. (2021b). Self-Employment by Sex, Age and Country of Birth (1 000). http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=lfsa_esgacob&lang=en Eurostat. (2021c). Self-Employment by Sex, Age and Educational Attainment Level (1 000). http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=lfsa_esgaed&lang=en Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. (2021a). Total early-stage entrepreneurial activity, established business ownership, perceived opportunities. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. (2021b). Total early-stage entrepreneurial activity, established business ownership, perceived opportunities. www.gemconsortium.org/data Gözüm, A. G. (2019). A Categorical Review of Academic Papers on Entrepreneurship: Academic Pattern of Entrepreneurship in Turkey. Ufuk Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 8(15), 367-385. Guerrero, M., Liñán, F., & Cáceres-Carrasco, F. R. (2020). The influence of ecosystems on the entrepreneurship process: a comparison across developed and developing economies. Small Business Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-020-00392-2 Gürel, E., Madanoğlu, M., & Altınay, L. (2021). Gender, risk-taking and entrepreneurial intentions: assessing the impact of higher education longitudinally. Education + Training, 63(5), 777-792. https://doi.org/10.1108/ET- 08-2019-0190 Hayek, F. A. von. (2002). Competition as a Discovery Procedure. Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 5(3), 9-23. Herbert, R. F., & Link, A. N. (1989). In search of the meaning of entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 1(1), 39-49. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00389915 Kachkar, O. A. (2019). Refugee Entrepreneurship: Empirical Quantitative Evidence on Microenterprises in Refugee Camps in Turkey. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 17(3), 333-352. https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2018.1479913 Kurteğe Sefer, B. (2020). A gender- and class-sensitive explanatory model for rural women entrepreneurship in Turkey. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 12(2), 191-210. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJGE- 07-2019-0113 Oğuztimur, Ş., & Seçkin, E. (2018). Entrepreneurship as an Instrument of Regional Development. Mehmet Akif Ersoy Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi. https://doi.org/10.30798/makuiibf.357437 32 | Mustafa Toycan, Burak Erkut Öner, M. A., & Kunday, Ö. (2016). A study on Schumpeterian and Kirznerian entrepreneurship in Turkey: 2006–2013. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 102, 62-71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2015.09.005 Özcan, N. A., Şahin, S., & Çankır, B. (2021). The validity and reliability of thriving scale in academic context: Mindfulness, GPA, and entrepreneurial intention among university students. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01590-1 Schwab, K. (2019). The Global Competitiveness Report 2019. World Economic Forum. Sharma, G. D., Shah, M. I., Shahzad, U., Jain, M., & Chopra, R. (2021). Exploring the nexus between agriculture and greenhouse gas emissions in BIMSTEC region: The role of renewable energy and human capital as moderators. Journal of Environmental Management, 297, 113316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113316 Sharma, G. D., Thomas, A., & Paul, J. (2021). Reviving tourism industry post-COVID-19: A resilience-based framework. Tourism Management Perspectives, 37, 100786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2020.100786 Sharma, G. D., Tiwari, A. K., Jain, M., Yadav, A., & Srivastava, M. (2021). COVID -19 and environmental concerns: A rapid review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 148, 111239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2021.111239 Sharma, G. D., Tiwari, A. K., Talan, G., & Jain, M. (2021). Revisiting the sustainable versus conventional investment dilemma in COVID-19 times. Energy Policy, 156, 112467. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112467 Solomon, S., Bendickson, J. S., Liguori, E. W., & Marvel, M. R. (2021). The effects of social spending on entrepreneurship in developed nations. Small Business Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-021-00458-9 Stoica, O., Roman, A., & Rusu, V. D. (2020). The Nexus between Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth: A Comparative Analysis on Groups of Countries. Sustainability, 12(3), 1186. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12031186 Turkish Statistical Institute. (2020). Küçük ve Orta Büyüklükteki Girişim İstatistikleri, 2019. Turkish Statistical Institute. (2021a). Adrese Dayalı Nüfus Kayıt Sistemi Sonuçları, 2020. https://data. tuik.gov.tr/Bulten/Index?p=The-Results-of-Address-Based-Population-Registration-System-2020-37210 Turkish Statistical Institute. (2021b). İstatistiklerle Gençlik, 2020. Witt, U. (2008). What is specific about evolutionary economics? Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 18(5), 547– 575. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-008-0107-7 Witt, U. (2014). The future of evolutionary economics: why the modalities of explanation matter. Journal of Institutional Economics, 10(4), 645-664. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137414000253 Yalçıntaş, M., İyigün, Ö., & Karabulut, G. (2021). Personal Characteristics and Intention for Entrepreneurship. The Singapore Economic Review, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0217590821500338 Zutshi, A., Mendy, J., Sharma, G. D., Thomas, A., & Sarker, T. (2021). From Challenges to Creativity: Enhancing SMEs’ Resilience in the Context of COVID-19. Sustainability, 13(12), 6542. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126542 Entrepreneurial activity in Turkey: A statistical overview for the years of 2006-2020 | 33 Authors The contribution share of authors is equal and amounted to 50% for each of them. MT – conceptualisation, literature review / BE – data analysis, discussion. Burak Erkut PhD in product innovation and market shaping from the perspective of evolutionary economics, 2018, TU Dresden, Germany) is a full-time member of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative, and Social Sciences of Bahçeşehir Cyprus University as well as a fellow of Institute for Research in Economic and Fiscal Issues (IREF). His research interests include evolutionary economics, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Correspondence to: Dr. Burak Erkut, Bahçeşehir Cyprus University, Alayköy Campus, Osmanlar Street 1, Alayköy, Lefkoşa, Northern Cyprus via Mersin 10 Turkey. E-mail: burak.erkut@baucyprus.edu.tr ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7746-782X Mustafa Toycan Mustafa Toycan is the secretary general of Bahçeşehir Cyprus University. His research interests include entre- preneurship, fintech and blockchain economics. Correspondence to: Mr. Mustafa Toycan, Bahçeşehir Cyprus University, Alayköy Campus, Osmanlar Street 1, Alayköy, Lefkoşa, Northern Cyprus via Mersin 10 Turkey. E-mail: mustafa.toycan@cyprus.bau.edu.tr ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2918-454X Acknowledgements and Financial Disclosure This work did not receive any funding. The authors declare that they have no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this paper. We are thankful to three anonymous referees and the editor for their constructive comments. Conflict of Interest The author declar that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Copyright and License This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution – NoDerivs (CC BY-ND 4.0) License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/ Published by Cracow University of Economics – Krakow, Poland 34 | Mustafa Toycan, Burak Erkut