Single men in their 40s are most likely to go bankrupt, new research shows, but a small business expert says this is due to men\u2019s aversion to ask for help as much as their risk-taking nature.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The report, titled Profiles of Debtors 2011<\/i>, contains information on the socio-economic characteristics of people who entered into personal insolvency administrations last year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The report, released by the Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia, shows the majority of debtors were male and employed in 2011.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to ITSA, the most common age range for bankrupts and personal insolvency agreement debtors was 40-44 years, compared to 25-29 years for debt agreement debtors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe average age of debtors and their unsecured debts have increased since 2003,\u201d Veronique Ingram, Inspector-General in Bankruptcy, said in a statement.<\/p>\n The primary cause of most business-related personal insolvencies was \u201ceconomic conditions affecting industry\u201d, according to ITSA.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The research shows 27% of bankrupts, and 69% of personal insolvency agreement debtors, owed $100,000 or more.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bank creditors were owed the largest proportion of the value of unsecured debt \u2013 41% of bankrupts, 58% of debt agreement debtors and 25% of personal insolvency agreement debtor\u2019s unsecured debt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Credit cards accounted for 21% of bankrupts\u2019 unsecured debt, 18% of personal insolvency agreement debtors\u2019 debt and a record 58% of debt agreement debtors\u2019 unsecured debt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally, 64% of bankrupts and 66% of debt agreement debtors had no divisible or realisable assets, compared to 17% of personal insolvency agreement debtors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Peter Strong, executive director of the Council of Small Business of Australia, says first and foremost, the research confirms a lot of people do indeed want to \u201cdo their own thing\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The comment comes on the back of the latest employment figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which show the male unemployment rate increased by 0.1 points to 5.2% in August.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to Strong, this could prompt a spike in the number of men starting new businesses.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Strong believes male business owners are, by nature, bigger risk-takers than their female counterparts, and the ITSA research reflects that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But he also believes men are less inclined to ask for help when they need it, which could explain the spike in single, 40-something men going bankrupt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThis has been shown in the farming sector. One of the issues affecting men is [their inability to acknowledge they need] help and to admit it to themselves,\u201d Strong says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a classic male thing \u2013 we perceive it as a weakness to say we can\u2019t do something. Men do struggle\u2026 and they\u2019ve got to be able to talk to someone about it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf your business is suffering, it might be an idea to get advice early\u2026 It\u2019s also a message for those health organisations to deal with people [in that situation].\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In addition to seeking professional help from a business advisor, Strong believes the best thing business owners can do is to join an industry association.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe are working with various government agencies to get more and more people to join associations,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Single men in their 40s are most likely to go bankrupt, new research shows, but a small business expert says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}