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This article discusses the statistics and trends surrounding the rapidly aging U.S. population. Older workers will make up an increasing portion of the workforce and these individuals represent an important growing demographic target market. While much has been written about the aging population and the potential for entrepreneurs to target this growing market, little research has been conducted on older entrepreneurs. They are a unique group and this article provides empirical results and discussion about the differences and importance of older entrepreneurs to the economy and as contributors to American society. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed.

Mature age or older entrepreneurship is an understudied but important area of research due to the ageing population and changing demographics in society. The purpose of this study is to review the literature about older entrepreneurship to understand the gaps and areas that need more attention.

A systematic literature review was undertaken and then the content was analyzed according to main themes. The key issues currently discussed about older entrepreneurship are stated, which leads to a number of future research suggestions.

The findings involve the need to take more care in how to define and conceptualize older entrepreneurship and to undertake more studies that have an older sample in general entrepreneurship research.

The systematic literature review highlights the gaps in the literature about older entrepreneurs that need to be addressed in future research.

The paper provides some suggestions about how older people can be more involved in entrepreneurship.

This study contributes to the emerging literature about older entrepreneurship by providing an overview and directions for the future.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the developing literature on entrepreneurship and identity by exploring the multidimensionality of older (50+) British women entrepreneurs’ identity. By using positionality as a lens, greater insight into the complexity of the lived multiple identities of older women entrepreneurs is explored.

A total of 12 in-depth qualitative interviews took place throughout the UK seeking to capture the various experiences of how older women engage with intersecting discourses surrounding enterprise culture and ageing whilst constructing their identities.

Overall, findings evidence the outcomes of these intersecting dimensions are largely positive and demonstrate the life enhancing benefits of these overlaps. Whilst tension was evidenced between age and how these women entrepreneurs perceive their entrepreneurial identities, as well as some constraints between identity as “mother” and “entrepreneur”, overall synergy was found between the intersection of older women entrepreneurs’ social identities and their entrepreneurial identity. It must be noted, however, that this synergy was heavily reliant on context and stage of life for these women.

This paper challenges the traditional discourse of entrepreneurship, which produces a homogenous view of entrepreneurs and omits key historical and social variables in the process of identity formation. The current paper adds to increasing calls to develop more sophisticated ways of measuring and understanding entrepreneurship and its impacts. The authors echo calls throughout the most recent literature to move away from the agency agenda and pursue lines of enquiry that examine entrepreneurship as a process in contexts that are underpinned by both agency and external factors.

This study investigates how older women linguists' careers developed and led to self-employment, and this not necessarily in a linear career stage fashion. The focus is on understanding the factors that influence older women to become or continue into an entrepreneurship lifestyle, beyond economic reasons.

The research questions that guided this research are: (1) How have women linguists' careers developed at older or older old age? and (2) Which factors influenced women linguists' decision to become or continue as self-employed at older or older old age? This study is based on semi-structure interviews and short narratives written by ten informants about their late-career motivations and decisions. To get a holistic view of career development of women linguistics at an older age, the approach adopted in this study is explorative and interpretive, where the theoretical perspective supporting this approach derives mainly from career and wellbeing theories.

The authors’ findings signal that these self-employed older women's careers develop along parallel, explorative or expertise directions. The factors which appear to influence these women's decision to continue their careers as entrepreneurs include economic reasons (having), clearly. They also importantly point to other themes surrounding wellbeing including social relations (loving), self-realization and lifelong learning (being), entrepreneurship as a life style (acting) and meaningful extension of one's career (belonging).

This paper discusses how older women entrepreneurs may experience wellbeing and careers integrated together. It challenges the common notion of “career” as a one-time, linear “choice”, and instead shows how older women's entrepreneurship is a complex phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into the prevalence of entrepreneurial activity amongst older people, and whether such activity may be an option for them to extend their working lives.

Research was conducted amongst the Policy Voice database of respondents at the Institute of Directors, members who have volunteered their time to answer research questions on a variety of public policy issues. Undertaken electronically, a series of questions were asked of respondents relating to their age and business activities. Amplification by verbatim comments was requested, which gave qualitative context to the quantitative answers received. Over 1,200 responses to the survey were received.

Starting, running or continuing in individual business or entrepreneurial activity would appear to be surprisingly commonplace amongst the research sample, suggesting that there might be more older entrepreneurs amongst the population as a whole than might have previously been supposed. For those with the requisite skills and personal attributes, entrepreneurship in later life would appear to be a valid option for extending working lives.

Research responses were from a membership base biased towards A, B, and C1 socio‐economic groups.

There have been very limited studies of entrepreneurial and business activity amongst older people.

The aim of this article is to discuss how age and entrepreneurship interact in the specific case of older (50+) entrepreneurs. Building on theories on entrepreneurship and theories on age and aging, the authors’ focus is on how such entrepreneurs relate to the building and running of a business organization. The authors discuss how entrepreneurship among the elderly plays out and how older entrepreneurs relate to the narratives on both age and entrepreneurship.

This research comprises quantitative as well as qualitative studies. The authors show that qualitative methods that unfold the process over time are necessary and essential to fully understand how and why entrepreneurs start their own business and/or continue to run it at older ages.

The authors find that the choice to become an entrepreneur at the age of 50+ (or to stay as one) is not a goal in itself, becoming an entrepreneur is a means to stay active in the labor market.

The study findings add to entrepreneurship theory by insights on the link between entrepreneurship and the labor market where the authors argue that becoming an entrepreneur at ages 50+ might be more a question of choice of organizational form than a question on a way of living or occupation. The authors also contribute to theories on age by showing that entrepreneurs aged 50+ choose entrepreneurship as a means to be able to stay in the labor market.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the entrepreneurial learning and support needs of older unemployed, highlighting the barriers that need to be addressed, and to explore the impact of a tailored entrepreneurship training programme.

An interpretivist philosophical standpoint is adopted with an action research approach to engage key informants to design, implement and evaluate the programme. Focus groups and interviews with 132 older unemployed individuals and 50 stakeholders across six countries were conducted as well as pre- and post-programme evaluations and surveys with 55 programme participants across three countries.

This research provides a deeper understanding of the entrepreneurial learning and support needs of older unemployed.

The small sample size of participants measured using a hybrid measure of ESE is a limitation.

For entrepreneurship educators, the components of designing and delivering an entrepreneurship programme for older unemployed are identified. For enterprise and unemployment support agencies, it provides evidence of the initial and ongoing support needs for starting and running a business in later life.

A framework specific to older unemployed individuals turning towards self-employment or entrepreneurship is proposed and tested in this paper. The framework proposes that individual and contextual antecedents influence the decision to become self-employed in later life and that the training, support and entrepreneurial experience helps to overcome barriers and shapes individual and societal outcomes.

Whether older or younger entrepreneurs may be better positioned to achieve performance outcomes for their ventures is a much debated question. Here, we draw on Galenson℉s theory of creativity to propose a contingency perspective for understanding the relationship between entrepreneur age and venture performance, suggesting that a venture℉s level of innovativeness plays a moderating role. Results from a representative sample of 1,182 nascent entrepreneurs revealed mixed support for our hypotheses. While a negative relationship was found between entrepreneur age and performance for those developing “innovative” ventures, no relationship was found between entrepreneur age and performance for those developing “imitative” ventures.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the motives behind individuals’ choice to have parallel business-employment careers (hybrid entrepreneurship) with a particular focus on passion (i.e. to work with something one is passionate about) as the main motive.

A survey was administered to 262 Swedish hybrid entrepreneurs. Hypotheses proposed associations of the individual's age at business start-up and weekly hours spent on the business with passion as the main motive for the hybrid form. Logistic regression was used to test the hypotheses.

The results indicated that first, the ability to work with something one is passionate about is the top motive for combining employment with a side business; second, passion is more likely to be the main motive behind the hybrid form among individuals who are older at business start-up; third, passion is less likely to be the main motive behind the hybrid form among individuals who spend more time on the business.

The study focusses on passion as motive for hybrid entrepreneurship, and in doing so, it does not test the extent to which hybrid entrepreneurs experience passion.

The results support the popular notion that passion drives people to have parallel business-employment careers. Findings indicating that passion as a motive is more common among those who are older at start-up and less common among those who spend more time on the business suggest the importance of acknowledging hybrid entrepreneurs’ various profiles when approaching them in research and practice.

This is the first study on motives behind hybrid entrepreneurship.