What makes people shun the relative security of full-time employment and start up a business themselves? For the past five years, the European Union's head office has financed an annual poll of more than 21,000 people on both sides of the Atlantic.

是什么原因让人们放弃朝九晚五的生活，转而自己创业呢？欧盟在过去5年里对大西洋两岸的2.1万人做了一个调查，试图从中找到答案。

The survey told a different story. Europeans essentially said they couldn't be bothered with the effort involved in starting a business: They wanted a regular, fixed income and a stable job.

这项调查显示了一个有差异的结果。欧洲人从根本上来说不喜欢自己创业，而更乐意找份有规律，有固定收入的稳定工作。

The most recent of these studies, released this week, shows that despite efforts to make the Union more competitive, the majority of its citizens remain consistently less entrepreneurial and more risk-averse than their American counterparts.

本周公布的最新调查结果显示，尽管欧盟努力让欧洲人更具竞争意识，但与美国人相比，大多数欧洲人不喜欢冒险，创业意识也比较淡薄。

Only 5 percent of Europeans said fear of red tape or reluctance to battle bureaucracies was holding them back. A corollary to this is the fear of failure in Europe. Half of all European respondents agreed with the statement, "One should not start a business if there is a risk it might fail." Only one-third of Americans agreed.

只有5％的欧洲人认为，官僚主义和繁琐复杂的行政程序是阻碍他们创业的原因。阻碍欧洲人创业的真正原因是害怕失败的心理。近一半的欧洲人同意这样的观点：“如果存在失败的可能，那就最好别开公司”，而只有三分之一的美国人也这么想。

If Europe can successfully diminish the stigma of failure, more people would be willing to start their own businesses. "There is a completely different attitude toward risk,"

said Zourek of the European Commission, comparing Europe with the United States. In Europe, "once you try a venture and you don't succeed, you don't get a second chance, but you get a stigma," he said.

欧盟官员兹欧里克认为，如果欧洲人能够摈弃怕输的心理，则会有更多人自己开公司。欧洲人对风险的态度与美国人显然不一样。在欧洲，冒险失败一次，就不会再有第二次的机会，而且还会身败名裂。

The European Union, he said, should make bankruptcy procedures less burdensome and make getting credit easier for risk-takers, even those who have failed before.

他认为，欧盟不应该将破产流程设计得像现在这样繁琐，应该让人们更容易获得贷款资助，即使对有过失败经历的人也应该这样。

There were an estimated 20.5 million people working in start-up companies in the United States in 2003, this is 23 times the number of those working at startups in France. The U.S. number was also 9 times the number of those in Britain and more than 7 times that of Germany.

据统计，2003年，美国有将近2050万人开创了自己的公司，是法国人的23倍、英国人的9倍，德国人的7倍。

That's not necessarily true of all Europeans: the poll found that people from smaller countries like Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Latvia were much more enthusiastic about working for themselves.

当然并不是所有欧洲人都如此，调查显示，欧洲一些小国家的人，如葡萄牙人，希腊人，爱尔兰人和拉脱维亚人等，则比较热衷于自己创业。

In this survey, 55 percent of Europeans aged 15 to 24 said that it would be "desirable" for them to become self-employed in the next five years. Among those 55 and older, only 18 percent said the same.

这份调查显示，15岁至24岁的年轻人中有55%的人期待在未来5年中自己当老板。但是对于55岁以上的人来说，只有18％的人愿意这么干。

Young Europeans could be the motor of entrepreneurship. But with European countries having some of the lowest birth rates in the developed world, who will take their place?

也许，年轻人是欧洲开启创业精神的助推器。但是，看看现在欧洲出生的人口越来越少，还能指望谁呢？