ABSTRACT

This chapter gives a detailed analysis of the role of demographic characteristics, including marital status, age and life cycle, and the structure of family firms within the whole business population and by sector and size categories. It also demonstrates how these interact, especially gender and life cycle. It confirms the importance of the family to entrepreneurs in this period. It shows that business proprietors had different fertility and nuptiality behaviour to that exhibited by workers, but that these demographic factors interacted with individuals’ sectors. The chapter also provides the first large-scale sample of family firms by identifying those where family members were employed by another family member; this allows commentary on the extensive literature on the importance of family firms in both historical and modern developments. Such firms were declining in importance over this period, and this kind of business organisation was common to more marginal forms of entrepreneurship, tending to have smaller workforces and to be located in rural areas.