"Desperation and inspiration" The motives and competences of older entrepreneurs in the UK

Abstract

The motives for and moves towards encouraging Europe's ageing population to stay longer in employment are reviewed. The UK-focussed literature on the subject of self-employment as a career option for older people is then critically examined. We find that few researchers have studied the experiences of the UK's older entrepreneurs. We describe the exploratory research which we conducted to address this deficit. We develop a typology of older entrepreneurs and divide them into 3 archetypes; employment creation is more associated with one of the 3 archetypes. We discuss the implications of our findings for public policy and expenditure in this area. More cross-sectoral research is needed if we are to fully understand the phenomenon.