By far the fastest growing segment of the business startup market is the 55-and-over age group, a new study shows.

The study, released Thursday by CIBC, says the 55 and over group accounts for 15% of total startups, up from 11% in 1990.

The CIBC study, Start Me Up: A Look at New Entrepreneurs in Canada forecasts 100,000 small businesses will be created over the next five years. Over the past two years, 25,000 small businesses began operations, an impressive performance considering it occurred along with robust labour market activity, CIBC says. British Columbia and Alberta lead the country in small business startup growth.

“Starting a business is becoming a more popular career choice, particularly among Canadians over 55 and those who are highly educated,” said Rob Paterson, senior vice president, CIBC Small Business Banking. “And self-employment is really a choice. Only one in five new entrepreneurs started a business in the past two years due to difficult employment conditions, down significantly from the mid-1990s.”

The study says older entrepreneurs tend to be more educated; almost one in four of those who have started a business in the past two years have a university degree, double the rate in 1990.

“With one in three startups being headed by an entrepreneur who is over 45, the aging Canadian population is expected to lead to strong startup growth,” Paterson said in a release. “This factor, along with technology and the Internet making self-employment more feasible, will likely result in more than 100,000 Canadians setting up shop over the next five years.”

The fastest growing segment of the newly self-employed are those in natural and applied science-related fields, with the number of new entrepreneurs in this category rising by almost 12% over the past two years. Startups in the health care industry are up 10% over the same period. In business and financial services, the number of startups increased by more 8.5% in the past two years, more than double the national average.

The study is available at www.cibc.com/ca/startupreport.