Senior Entrepreneurship, Gender Diversity and Intersectionality

Abstract

Entrepreneurship, due to its association with risk and dynamic engagement with the world of business, is often considered a domain of economic activity for younger people. This perspective creates a problematique that stems from excluding entrepreneurship of elderly in the field. In this chapter, we examine entrepreneurship for an understudied group, senior entrepreneurs in terms of gender differences and intersectionality of this group. We illustrate that senior entrepreneurship cannot be studied as a gender-neutral phenomenon since women and men experience senior entrepreneurship differently. We also explore senior entrepreneurship along other demographic categories such as ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, disability, religion and belief as well as other emic categories of difference. Our analyses demonstrate the utility and urgency of considering age diversity in entrepreneurship theory and policy.