A socio-demographic image of a modern entrepreneur

The article shows the role of entrepreneurship in territories’ economic development. Entrepreneurship is considered as a form of population’s creative labor activity associated with the search for new creative ideas, their analysis, practical implementation, accompanied by improvement of both production process organization and products released. Based on analysis of the existing foreign works in the field of entrepreneurship, we demonstrate the presence of debatable aspects related to the influence of various socio-demographic characteristics on propensity to entrepreneurship. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to identify the socio-demographic characteristics of entrepreneurs; attention is paid to different groups identified depending on the motivation for business (“voluntary”, “forced”). It is shown that both express greater satisfaction with their lives in general, they are a little less satisfied with their work and its individual aspects. It has been revealed that amid compliance of job requirements with the qualifications there is a greater number of satisfied people; inefficient use of human capital (the phenomenon of overqualification, as well as the situation where the qualification is lower than job requirements) leads to a decrease in life and work satisfaction. It has been established that in a situation where the population has a higher educational level there is often greater satisfaction with work. However, satisfaction with wages is not always achieved: both “forced” and “voluntary” entrepreneurs with secondary vocational education are more likely to be satisfied with the level of wages compared to those with higher education. Based on facts we prove the hypothesis about a greater level of implementation of individual components of labor potential among “voluntary” entrepreneurs. It is revealed that the greatest differences between those ready and not ready for entrepreneurship is observed in components of labor potential such as the need for achievement, creative potential and sociability.