Family Businesses in European Countries. An Economic Analysis Based on Web Scraping

Family businesses are the ownership model in Europe. This study is the first to provide representative estimates of their share of European economies. It is based on Eurostat data covering 26.8 million private-sector enterprises. Family businesses are identified using a multi-source approach that uses a proprietary business database, an internet archive, and AI tools. This reduces the tendency for their prevalence to be underestimated, as is often the case in studies that rely on a single method. 97.7 percent of all businesses are family-owned and account for 76.1 percent of employment. 92.0 percent of these are also family-run, accounting for 56.6 percent of employment. On average, family businesses contribute 59.6 percent to value added in the private sector. However, their prevalence declines significantly with company size (from 98.3 percent for micro-enterprises to 51.1 percent for companies with over 250 employees) and varies greatly by sector. The share of employment in capital-intensive sectors is significantly lower than in labour-intensive sectors. These shares also vary considerably across countries. The proportion of value added ranges from around 40 percent in the Netherlands to over 75 percent in certain Eastern European member countries. An analysis of variance identifies company size as the most important influencing factor, followed by sector-specific and country-specific effects. Institutional analyses suggest that family businesses are less prevalent in legal systems that offer stronger investor protection and more effective public administration.