If you're considering going into business for yourself and you happen to be over 55, you might be surprised to find that you are part of a groundswell! A recent study by Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University, and published by The Kauffman Foundation, found that, contrary to popularly held assumptions:
Over the past
decade or so, the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity belongs to
the 55-64 age group. The 20-34 age bracket, meanwhile, which is usually
identified with swashbuckling and risk-taking youth (think Facebook and
Google), has the lowest. Perhaps most surprising, this disparity
occurred in the 11 years around the dot-com boom—when the young
entrepreneurial upstart became a cultural icon.
These results are being attributed to several factors, including:
- With longer life expectancies and greater health in later life, older generations may continue to start new firms—or mentor young entrepreneurs.
- Since the first Internet-era recession, transaction costs and barriers to entry have fallen for entrepreneurs of every age.
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